For Whom the Bell Tolls
by IHKF
Summary: When monsters start to invade Mayview, the morality of the connection between a medium and their spirit comes into question. Is killing a spirit any different from taking the life of another human? Relationships between club members become strained, and if Max thought the club was coming apart before, it certainly is now.
1. Chapter 1

The day had been little less than exhausting, and Max could feel the pull of his muscles with each step he took downhill, the pain in his legs growing duller and duller with each passing block. He cursed Johnny Jhonny somewhere in the back of his hazy mind, and vowed revenge for his scooter- someday. Right then, he would be satisfied to meet the cold air of the corner store- home, though he was still unsure he wanted to call it that- and the familiar curve of his mattress.

He trekked up to the front doors, reaching a hand out to pull a handle and retracting it as soon as he remembered that it was, after all, a sliding glass door, and sliding glass doors didn't have handles. Max stepped out of the hot sunset and into the blasting AC. If he was mumbling his grievances under his breathe, it didn't register.

Up the stairs he slumped, tired enough of the weight of his backpack to let it hit each stair on its own as he dragged it behind him. His metal bat sat like a heavy brick meant as a shackle more than a weapon, and after the fight he and the club had been through that day, he wasn't willing to think much else of it. Spirits seemed to enjoy terrorizing the dead- undead?- of their school, and punching them in the face with a metal bat was therapeutic on occasion, just not today. The stupid half-mountain-lion half-rattlesnake had them running all over the school the entirety of lunch period and then some; he cringed remembering what it was like running into the student council without a hall pass, and grimaced at the feel of the detention slip weighing down his back pocket. Spender had said he could get it alleviated, but Max still wasn't sure he could trust him to remember. The man did seem to be in his own world, lately, at least, more than he was the first day Max had been there. Maybe he was simply seeing the "Real Spender", but something told Max his arrival in Mayview was the mere beginning of a handful of changes for the club.

What those changes entailed, exactly, Max was far too, unfortunately, ignorant to guess.

He tossed his backpack onto the couch as the sole of his shoe hit the final step, grunting and slinking towards the kitchen in search of sustenance. "Remind me to demand lunch breaks off." He could hear his father and Zoe talking, probably lounging around the kitchen waiting for him to return so they could have take out and watch reality TV. Max entered the room with a wave that went unnoticed.

His dad sat leaning over the table with his hands clasped, and had Max not known his father to be one of the chillest people the world had ever seen, he might have thought the tightness of his eyes was an indicator of- stress? Apprehension? Fear? Zoe looked more relaxed, slouched as far back as she possibly could be in her seat with her arms crossed like shields over her huffing chest. She was on the defensive, clearly, and that had Max's attention. He reached into the fridge and opened up a bottle of orange soda substitute, raising an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

Zoe turned her sharp eyes on him, nose scrunching up as she snorted and hopped to the floor. "Ask Casanova!" She waved in Dad's direction and twisted on her heel, and before Max could even register what she'd said, she was gone.

His dad sighed, and leaned against the table, burrowing his head into his arms.

"Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"What's going on?" Max had a thought, and spit the sip of juice he'd gone to take. "Oh god, are we moving again already?"

"No! No, no, no, no. Don't be silly, loinfruit!" ("We had a conversation about that word, Dad, and your prohibited use of it…") His dad sat back up and pat Max on the back a few times, uneasy smile inching from one crooked side of his face to another. "It's great news, actually! I suppose your sister just isn't ready for this big of a change, yet…"

"Are we sending Zoe off to boarding school? Because, ya know, I could really get behind that-!"

"I've got a date!"

Max paused, biting down on his lips to keep another sip of juice from pouring past his tongue. He already had one mess to clean up, after all. At first, he wasn't sure he'd heard his father correctly. After all, it'd only been five years, and the man seldom showed interest in the actresses in the new superhero comics, let alone real women. He'd never shown any surmountable interest in the blind dates their friends and family were constantly trying to set him up on, and Max had been convinced that was partly the reason for the move to Mayview! He'd never questioned it- after all, if Dad wasn't ready, he wasn't ready, and he wasn't exactly jumping at the thought of replacing Mom, either.

He'd figured his dad just, well, felt the same way.

He glanced at his father, then, and watched the crookedness of his smile turned almost hopeful, like he was sitting on whatever response there'd be, like whatever Max said next would make or break his world and the scale of the universe- his universe.

Max looked at him, took a long swig of his juice, finished the glass off, and nodded. "That's great, Dad! When is it?"

* * *

 _Tuesday_

It was odd that Spender was up until midnight grading papers. He was, after all, a typically sufficient teacher, or so he'd liked to think. He just hadn't had the time for the last week. It seemed spirits were cropping up in even larger numbers than before, becoming more aggressive, even, enough to attack Isabel in the middle of class; getting out of that one hadn't been fun, and he was sure his class had been more than a little suspicious of why he'd decided on an impromptu trip to the park to study… the statues? He wasn't sure what assignment he'd given the students, then, and judging by the papers, the students weren't quite sure, either.

He sighed and leaned back in his seat, rubbing between his eyes and stretching his back as best he could with his butt planted firmly against the desk chair. "I'm getting too old for this-"

His phone began to ring, vibrating silently on the desk beside the mountain of papers he still had left to grade. He frowned and reached out to pick it up, hardly glancing at the number before answering. "Hello, Richard Spender speaking?"

His eyes popped open, and he sprang forward so suddenly that the sheer force knocked his seat back as he came to stand. "Master Hashimoto! Yes, of course, I-! Yes… yes." Spender frowned and stepped away from grading for a moment, letting his legs stretch as his back had earlier, as he paced to and fro in his bedroom. "I… suppose I could get in contact with Master Guerra? Hah hah, yes, he is a very busy man." He came to stand in front of his window, looking out onto the street as car after car crossed from one end of the panel to the next, leaving behind only the fading sound of pressured air. "Well, yes… Master Hashimoto? May I ask why you're requesting to see Master Guerra and, well, why I'm the middle man in this?"

More cars passed by, but Spender's mind was far far away from the road before him as he shut his phone and slipped it into his pocket. Lips in a thin line, he glanced to his desk, where the ungraded paper still lay, taunting him with each wave of a corner under the moving fan. "This may get messy…"

 _It concerns one of your students._

* * *

"You have to admit, I was pretty awesome yesterday." Max flexed one of his arms for Isaac to see, grinning from ear to ear as he watched his own muscle, or lack thereof, contract. He was finally getting the hang of the whole "spectral" thing, after all, and he had to give himself some credit where credit was due. Isaac seemed less than amused, if not borderline annoyed by his attempts at conversation. It had been like this for weeks after Hijack. When Isabel and Ed weren't following the two of them to school, Max found Isaac to be less than sociable company. Any attempt at conversation was met with an eyeroll or a scoff or one of his infamous anime "tch" noises, usually accompanied by a shrug of the shoulder, as though it put distance between the two of them.

Today it was an eyeroll, and Isaac wasn't even so kind as to make eye contact.

They still weren't cool, yeah, Max knew that, but he wasn't one to stand a silence, especially one with underlying malice. He was just trying to lighten the mood, and Isaac was too petty to even try. Max exhaled and rolled his eye right back, reaching into his pocket to grab his cellphone. If Isaac wasn't going to make conversation, then he'd have to find something else to occupy the silence. Dawghouse was usually up to texting…

 _Max: Hey man, wassup?_

 _Dawghouse: Nothing much, Maxy Boy, how's the third week outta the city?_

 _Max: Can't complain, I guess._

It was true. Aside from the random spirits sneaking in and out of his house at night and the ghosts pestering him in class during the day, he didn't have a lot to complain about. Mayview was, actually, a really great city. Yeah, it was pretty freaking crazy, what with teachers in lakes and a fully capable monetary system consisting entirely of laminated stars, but it was a scene to look at all the same. He was used to getting up and seeing the apartment complex across from his own, sometimes even waking up to awkward eye contact with the neighbor's naked cat- creepy, that little thing was, and evil too, he was sure- now, he woke up to sunrises and rainbows and green trees and hills as wide as the eye can see. He'd wake up and just think about how his mom would have loved it, how she probably had loved it when she'd lived in Mayview. She'd never really like the city. It was too crowded for her, too busy. She liked quiet; she'd produced some of her best works in the early AM, when the rest of the city was asleep. He'd found himself wondering why she ever left. _I might not have been born if she hadn't…_

 _Max: My dad has a date this week. Zoe's been skulking around the house like she did that one week she thought String Swirl Suzan was canceled when she was four._

 _Dawghouse: That's weird, man, I can't imagine your old man with anyone else._

Max frowned.

 _Dawghouse: Can you?_

He inhaled, shut his eyes, and exhaled.

 _Max: If it makes him happy, I'm happy._

"Hey, losers!" Max screeched and juggled his phone in the air until he was sure he had a good grip on it again, twisting to glare at Isabel, who still had a hand planted firmly on his back. She reached around his shoulders and pulled one side of his body into her arms, squeezing him despite the protests he managed to make. "What's up?" She winked Isaac's way, and she too received an eyeroll. He scoffed and Max almost felt jealous at the cold shoulder combo Isabel had received. If she'd noticed, she didn't pay the attitude any mind.

"Nothing. You?"

Isabel grinned and raised a fist as though she was socking the sky itself. "Beat one of the older students in a rematch last night! Let's see them look down on me now!"

Max glanced around, finding a suspicious lack of blond within their general area. He raised an eyebrow. "Where's Ed?"

Isabel pulled her arm away from him, then, shrugging and turning her quickly sharpening eyes on the road ahead of them. "Don't know."

* * *

By the time the three of them got to the clubroom, Max's mood had lightened substantially, at least enough to get him through a school day. Isabel was a handful to deal with, but she was also an interesting conversationalist, at least by normal people standards. Sure, she wasn't somebody he could have fun snarking at- she often times ignored him- but she did have a lot to tell him about the paranatural world, and he certainly had questions.

She'd been explaining the in's and out's of spirit biology when they pushed the door to the clubroom open. Ed turned his head and waved at them before returning to the dragon he'd been painting in midair, brows furrowed as he stroked each individual scale, working his way down from the head to the tail. Spender was more distracted, pacing around the small room with his cellphone pressed to his ear. At their entrance he turned around and smiled, waving for them to come in.

Max came to sit on Ed's left, while Isaac went to sit on the armrest of the other couch, shuffling like he wasn't comfortable. Max looked at him and gestured to the entire empty couch, and then to the armrest he'd chosen instead. _Don't you wanna sit on an actual seat?_ Isaac shrugged and crossed his arms. _I'm happy like this._ Max squinted and gestured more vehemently to the rest of the empty couch. _What the flip is your problem?_ Isabel passed them both by and sat opposite Isaac on the other end of the otherwise empty couch, albeit on the cushion. Max glanced from the empty seat to Ed's right and then back to Isabel, who had her legs crossed and was doing an awful job of looking like she hadn't sat away from them on purpose. Ed, who must have been watching her, raised a somber hand and wiped away the incomplete dragon, brush in hand slipping like dead weight into his open backpack. Max frowned- it wasn't really his place to say anything, but he couldn't help but wonder...

Spender sighed and leaned against the desk, pressing one hand at his forehead, other hand still squarely at his ear. "Yes, I-! Yes, sir… Master, if you would just- yes? Yes. Yes, I understand. Should I tell Master Hashimoto seven- no? Eight. Eight o'clock. Yes…. well, that's very kind of you to say sir, I- oh, he hung up on me."

"Hah!"

Maybe Spender didn't appreciate Max literally pointing and laughing at him, because his eye narrowed behind his glasses.

"Max."

"Your sensei hung up on you."

"Yes, I know." Spender readjusted his glasses and stood up straight, hand reaching up to loosen the tie around his neck. "Now, if you children wouldn't mind, it is time for morning patrol." The whole of them groaned, Max with his head thrown back and Isabel slinging her upper body over the armrest. Spender smiled and clasped his hands together, tired eyes turning bright under black frames, if only for show. "Isabel, Max! It's up to you two today!"

He didn't notice the way Isaac tensed or the growing slump of Ed's shoulders, but Max did; he noticed it as he stood and slung his backpack over his sore arm, and he noticed is still as Isabel wrapped one arm over his shoulders and waved a goodbye nobody but Spender returned.

* * *

He wasn't always in a bad mood. He couldn't say he walked around his house grunting and pouting, though it wasn't like there was ever anybody in the house to accuse him of it, so maybe he actually did, but he didn't feel grouchy at home. He didn't feel like crushing the controller in his hands when he was playing a video game. He didn't want to throw a mug across the room and see it smash against the white wall when he had tea to calm him down before he tried to sleep. His bed never left him feeling cold, because it was warm and it enveloped his entire body like a good hug, and in those small moments he was- well, maybe not happy, but he was content. He was satisfied. No, he never felt like his insides were tearing him apart, or that his heart was slowly decaying and simply wanted the peace he himself so badly yearned for. The only thing home and school had in common was that he was alone- always, always, always alone. Maybe that wasn't good, maybe he wished that his parents were around, but if they were then he'd just be reminded how distant they were and how nonexistent their entire "family" is and-

… and home would be just like school.

Isaac wanted to go home. He wanted to be done for the day. When the seventh period bell rang, he felt such relief, so much that it lifted him out of his seat and swung his lungs in a circle and made his heart leap, just before it went crashing down into the furthest depths of his stomach, sending his entire spirit into the murky waters of reality. Of course, he still had club to go to, how could he forget?

Isaac huffed and shut his locker door, carrying his uncooperative body to the clubroom.

He thought about quitting the club sometimes- not all the time, just most of the time. It was a thought that occurred to him when he'd feel a little more hurt than irritated, or the annoyances he called teammates were trying to push him to the brink of insanity. It always came like a small, beaded light in his mind, flickering like a candle he dare not touch, but each time it came to mind, the fire would grow just the smallest bit larger. It mingled with his pain like it was flirting, gracing his lips, pushing him to maybe say-!

No. Perhaps surprising, his pride always won out in the end- pride and logic. Where else would he have even a chance of getting information? Where else would he go if he had questions? There was no telling what information he'd be cut off from if they decided to spite him; he had little faith they wouldn't.

Maybe it was fear.

When he entered the clubroom at last, he found Isabel and Max still hadn't made it. His heart leapt in his chest, and he couldn't help but shove the feeling under as many murky, cloudy, dirtied emotions as he could to hide it, to pretend he hadn't thought for just a second that he might have been disappointed that Max hadn't shown up yet. _He's a liar like they are._ Ed and Spender were crowded around the monitors, almost oblivious to his entrance. Isaac grimaced and cleared his throat.

"Is there something going on?"

Spender twisted around in his rolling chair and clapped once. "Ah! Isaac! You're here! There appears to be a spirit causing trouble in the west hallway. I'd like you and Ed to get things under control!"

Ed finally turned around and met Isaac's gaze, giving him the most unsettling, toothy, smart-aleck grin Isaac was sure he could muster. He sighed, and shrugged.

* * *

Isaac dodged what appeared to be an extended, muddy claw as it reached and grasped for the floor where he'd once been. Had he been a second slower, those claws might have done more than just pierce skin… He cringed at the thought. "Ed, try to cut it at its core!"

"What do you think I've been doing," Ed cut down one of its many limbs and chuckled to himself at its screech. He turned his gaze on Isaac and gestured to the width of the hallway, or more presumably, the spirit itself. "Dancing with it and having pina coladas?"

Isaac grunted and rolled his eyes, using his aura to deflect another claw headed straight for his face. The limb bounced off and went flying for the ceiling. "Could you maybe, I don't know, cut it with the sarcasm for a hot minute?"

"No, but I could cut it for a cold minute?"

Isaac winced as another arm changed directions and charged for him almost faster than he could pull up another shield. It hit the ground instead. He stumbled. "Ed!"

Ed squated as another arm came for him, and hopped out of the way when it came down on the tile. He painted a thin line, as sharp as he could make with his non-dominant hand, and brought it down upon the claw. The spirit screeched again and pulled back. Ed's eyes followed the tile where he'd been, and he swallowed hard. "Hey, Isaac?"

Isaac took a shot of lightning at the spirit, aiming as best as he could for its chest. Its skin tore apart. His lightning missed, shooting through the gaping hole. "Yeah?"

Ed waved at him from across the hall, then pointed to the floor. "I think we have a problem. It's a poltergeist now. Causing damage to school property."

Isaac groaned and looked back, struggling to keep his hands on either side of the tentacle rushing him. It pulled suddenly to the left. Isaac's entire body moved with it. "Are you serious?"

"As can be."

"We need backup!"

His hands slipped at the last second, and Isaac found the wind knocked from his lungs as one of the arms rammed into his stomach. It sent him into the lockers, gasping for air. His vision began to blur, and he squeezed his eyes closed. Another arm came rushing at him, and he only narrowly dodged its attack. The claws hit the lockers and tore metal the way down, leaving lines as thick as a dragon's down the wall beside him.

"This world will be ours again."

Isaac gasped and looked to the mass that he'd assumed was the spirit's core, and he couldn't decide if he was in shock, or if it truly had grown an eye- a single, bloodied eye. It was staring him down, watching him as though anticipating his every breathe. The question on his lips was dead on his tongue, and he couldn't be sure they hadn't escaped him in a whisper so quiet he couldn't even hear it over the heavy beating of his heart. It blinked, and he swore its eyelid was inside out, like he'd seen other kids do in elementary to freak out the girls and the smaller children. He choked on his own air.

"We will reign again… and you will pay for this."

The most disturbing thing was how, underneath the echo of a spirit's voice, he could hear the undeniable sound of a human- like something out of a horror movie, like someone eaten alive screaming for help. Isaac went to ask, went to say anything to draw out that human voice, beg for answers so maybe he could help- and then Spender had cut right through it.

Isaac slid to the floor, heaving and coughing and- he reached up to wipe his mouth- was that… was that blood? "Not ectoplasm…"

"Is that…" Max appeared to be holding back a sudden nausea. "Is that normal?"

Isaac glanced up to find that it was everywhere. A mixture of human blood and ectoplasm alike, coating the walls of the hall like something straight out of a horror movie. Even Isabel looked frightened, eyes wide as she helped Ed to his feet, who could hardly function with the way he was looking at the floor. Spender stood in the middle of it all, brows furrowed, hands clenching and unclenching as he stood as still as stone.

What was that thing, if not a spirit? Was it- he felt sick to think it- a living thing? Why could they attack it if it was still living, then? Isaac wiped away the blood- ectoplasm? Something else?- from his jaw with the back of his hand, shuddering to think of all the questions building and fighting for top pick when he head was so… so muddied that nothing made sense.

"Isaac."

He blinked back to reality, glancing up to Spender, who then stood with his cellphone in one hand.

"You should go get cleaned up."

Isaac looked from Spender to Isabel and Ed, who were watching him, why were they watching him? "Yeah, I guess I should…" His voice trailed off like it'd known something he didn't, and he pushed himself to think about what he could be missing. What was wrong with the picture?

And then he saw it.

Ed wasn't as bad, but his legs were still nearly soaked in the weird blood-ectoplasm combination. Spender himself was covered from speckled face to drenched shoes, eyes narrowed behind the glasses he hadn't yet taken off to clear. He'd gotten up to make for the bathroom, but halted midway up from the floor. "Why am I the only one who needs to get cleaned up?"

If he was thrown off by Isaac's apprehension, Spender must have been a hard read. He swore he could see the man's eyes flicker behind his shades, and he pointed more avidly to the bathrooms. "Isaac, that's an order."

He blinked again to clear his eyes, gaze running over the faces of his other teammates.

Isabel and Ed were looking away, eyes anywhere in the destroyed hall but him. He'd been expecting that.

Slowly, cautiously, he turned to look at Max, who stood on Spender's other end with wide eyes and a stomach he held between his hands. Their eyes met, and Isaac's brows furrowed because he was asking a question and Max had to have known, had to have understood because he had earlier.

Max frowned and turned his head to the side, hands falling limp at his legs, and Isaac knew he'd been stupid to think there'd be any other outcome.

He sucked the roof of his mouth with his tongue and stood up, hand clutching his sides were the spirit- person, thing- had gotten him earlier. "Fine." He turned away from the rest of the group and all but stomped in the direction of the west hall bathrooms, clutching hands turning to fists without him even noticing.

* * *

It was a good thing the school was empty come nightfall, Max mused to himself, because otherwise there was no way Spender could have called down a cleaning crew, of all things, and gotten away with it. It wasn't like that was their job, he guessed, they were just spectrals, friends, he called to help him out of a particularly messy situation, but still! "What was that thing if it wasn't a spirit?"

Spender sighed and leaned back against the wall, squeezing clean the hand towel he'd had Max break out of the janitor's closet. "A monster."

"Great. What, exactly, is a monster?"

"An overloaded medium." Spender dunked his washcloth back into the mess and began clearing as much as he could in one sweep. Isabel plopped her own down and began cleaning the same area, wiping as aggressively as she fought. Spender nodded at her in a silent acknowledgment, and Max didn't miss the smile that brought to her face. He glanced down at his own washcloth, finding the mixture of blood and ectoplasm to become thicker, more like rotten slush than, well, however the heck else blood and ectoplasm should hypothetically act. "Of course, this isn't something that normally happens, it's just" he paused and wiped away the blood that was beginning to crust under his glasses "in this case, the spirit is ready and willing to leave, but…"

"... the spectral won't let go?" Isabel's voice was sharp, like she was barely keeping it from breaking with emotion, and Max couldn't even begin to tell what she must have been feeling. She was used to all of the spirits and ghosts and stuff; she'd grown up around it her whole life, he hadn't, but in some ways he wondered if that made the new knowledge even worse for her. He was terrified, yes, and he probably wouldn't be able to wash the sight from memory for the next thirty years, but he hadn't been so deathly close to a threat like that his entire life.

"Exactly. A situation like that can only build so long before, well" he held up his washcloth and let the blood and ectoplasm flop off like thrown tomatoes "this happens. The humans and spirits fighting for dominance over one body eventually tore it apart and made a monstrosity of it. They don't think like we do, they have two sets of thoughts and memories. Most importantly, two sets of emotions, both terrified and angered, enough that all they can agree they want is, well, revenge or blood or whathaveyou. What makes things worse is that, because the body they both inhabit is still of the physical world, non-spectrals can see and feel their impact. That is what makes them so especially dangerous."

"And it sounds like there are a lot of them." Max dumped his washcloth into the bucket and let the hot water fold over his hands, soothing in the face of the chore he'd set upon doing. "And they're coming for us for some reason."

"The Consortium specifically, probably." Isabel amended, moving hair from her eyes as a bead of sweat rolled down a string of her bangs. "I've never heard of that happening within our ranks, so I'm going to assume that's the agency we branched off from."

Spender nodded. "Before The Consortium existed, there was an earlier spectral group. Mankind was still new to the paranatural world, and experience has taught us better. The spectrals who became monsters were some of the first mediums on record. The spectrals sealed them away in an undisclosed location."

"But one got out." Ed spoke up for the first time that hour, squeezing out his washcloth before wiping his reddened face with it. Max cringed. "So, what do we do now?"

"I'm not sure…" Spender glanced up at the other spectrals running around the hall, struggling to open lockers, dropping entire buckets of water and falling over the sopping wet floor- it might have been funny had Max been in a laughing mood. "I'll be speaking with the other agents tonight."


	2. Chapter 2

Ed was going on about something, had been for the last fifteen minutes. Usually she would have been freaking out about his fight with him, maybe exaggerating his finesse a little to boost his ego, but tonight- Isabel tightened her grip on her bag. Ed wasn't her concern; the looming threat of the monsters were. She gazed down at her shirt, which she was sure was covered in dried ectoplasmic mixture. It wasn't blood. She wasn't going to let herself think that. Because then Spender had killed somebody, not a spirit, not a ghost-

"And it never saw me coming when I…" Ed trailed off beside her.

-somebody like them, a human, and there was no telling what path thoughts like that would lead her down. "Cool, Ed."

"Yeah…"

* * *

Master Hashimoto looked the same as Spender remembered him. His beard still hung to his chest, grey like the warmest sweater, eyes deep and dark with knowledge Spender had never truly felt he'd inherited, even as well-read as he was. Hashimoto didn't teach the way Guerra did- when you failed, he always seemed to know why, but never would he tell you he knew, or what he thought the problem to be. He gave riddles, thoughts, and though learning from him had been mind-bogglingly irritating, it was also greatly satisfying, if Spender was remembering correctly.

Guerra raised a hand and stroked his beard. "BL must already know, right?"

"No," Hashimoto caressed his beard just as Guerra did, who glanced at Hashimoto and scoffed to himself, letting his hand fall from his chin. "And we would be right not to tell her."

"What? But, Master, that's-!"

"We have no way of knowing how she may react." Spender fell silent and Hashimoto nodded to the students in the yard, blasting spectral shots at each other. Usually Guerra would be out there with them, grunting to himself and yelling obscenities at the older students, but Hashimoto insisted they have the conversation inside. Now, Spender assumed it was to get away from eavesdropping ears. "BL is an unpredictable woman. Should she choose to go to war, I fear for my younger students."

"Perhaps you fear for yours," Guerra muttered, and Spender could see the growing grin, smug and malicious. "But my students are more than ready for war."

"Including your granddaughter?"

Guerra fell silent again, eyes falling to the yard as though he hadn't heard Hashimoto. Spender frowned and turned to the second floor, eyeing the doors he knew lead to Ed's room, black paint coating the outside as a small child would use stickers, and the door to Isabel's room, the more humble of the two. There was a small wooden plaque resting a few inches above the handle, reading "Isabel's Room" in bolded, rounded font, a lighter red than her aura from years of hanging in the same spot.

"If the monsters have escaped, it's because an agent set them free. It is her peers under suspicion."

"BL does not have peers, Guerra, she goes unchecked, which is why we must keep this to ourselves."

Spender sighed. "I suppose… but if she finds out-?"

"You will leave it to me."

Guerra laughed and cocked an eyebrow in Hashimoto's direction. "You think she will let you take all of the responsibility? When she is done with you, she will come for us, as well."

Hashimoto's dark eyes narrowed. "I said she is unchecked, not merciless."

"Enough." Guerra raised both hands before crossing them under the sleeves of his robe once more. "What did you originally wish to speak with me about? I know it disgusts you to step into my dojo. What is it you want?"

Hashimoto raised an eyebrow, and Spender thought that perhaps he hadn't been done discussing the monster situation, but he nodded and smiled and said: "Your school is overflowing, Master Guerra. I would like to take a student off your hands."

"You want an impressive one. You called for a negotiation."

Spender scrunched his nose and stuck his hands in his pockets, balling them into fists; that was why he had to be there. Hashimoto wasn't just asking Guerra, he was asking-

Hashimoto stood straight. "Isabel."

Guerra glanced at Spender from the side. "My granddaughter stays here." Spender frowned and shook his head from side to side. _I swear I didn't know that's what he wanted._ Still, he was thankful Hashimoto had asked for Isabel. Any other student Guerra may have been willing to part with…

"But I do have another idea…"

Spender froze.

* * *

"I just- I don't understand!" He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to cry. Isaac repeated the mantra in his head because, and he was sure of it, he was walking on the very thin line between sanity and losing himself in grief. "I was- I was covered in blood! I was looking for help, for- for something! And they all just turned away!" His hands wrapped around an old, dusty vase, and he could feel the dirt inching underneath his nails, sticking to his hand and coloring his palm black as he was feeling, black as the future he saw for himself, black as a home with no lights on-!

He tossed it across the room.

He wanted to see it shatter, wanted to see it hit the wall and break into thousands of pieces, fall to the floor like snow and sound like bells. Doorman caught it in one hand. "Young Master Isaac, perhaps it would be for the best you" he paused and set the vase to the side, on a table so covered with grime that what might have been wood once then looked like mud. "... you put some distance between yourself and the others for a while."

Isaac blinked and took those words and juggled them around in his mind. The thought had occurred to him, so why…?

He scoffed and turned to the side, crossing his arms. "What? And be even more alone?"

"You must think, Young Master Isaac, what makes you feel more alone- being alone, or being alone in a full room?"

Isaac faltered. Maybe…

Home versus School. Being alone versus feeling alone. The difference had always been there, he'd just never wanted to think about it. He always thought he'd look pathetic without the club, but he must have looked equally as pathetic clinging desperately to people he hated just to keep appearances- just to pretend that he belonged somewhere. What self respecting kid would stick around where he wasn't wanted?

"I'll think about it."

* * *

 _Wednesday_

He'd lost track of how many days it had been since Isabel had walked to school with him. She'd intentionally started taking longer in the mornings, at least it sure seemed like it. At the beginning he always ask when she'd be ready to go, and time after time she'd wave him off and tell him to go without her.

Eventually Ed stopped asking.

There had to be a way to get her to talk to him again. They'd been friends since they'd learned to talk- they couldn't end over one small mistake, right? Their friendship meant something, maybe everything! It was supposed to transcend time itself, follow them to the afterlife! Carry them through the entirety of their lives, never faltering!

He had to become a man, he knew that, so he'd started talking himself up to her.

" _Hey, Izzy, did you see that move earlier?"_

" _Hey, Izzy! That was pretty cool, wasn't it?"_

She'd been significantly less enthusiastic every time, if she acknowledged him at all. So he tried to protect her in battle, help her, but more often than not that only upset her more.

" _Ed, get out of my way!"_

" _Ed, what are you doing?"_

At this point he was starting to think she hated him, or was well on the way there. He just wanted things to go back to normal! She had to forgive him eventually, right?

Ed sighed and inched the door to the clubroom open. He was the first one in, per the "new" usual, aside from Spender. He'd walk in, wave, and Spender would wave back, and then they'd both sit there in silence for twenty minutes while they waited for the rest of the club to show up. The order in which that would happen was up in the air; sometimes Isabel and Max would walk in, and Isaac would walk in a good twelve minutes after, and other times Max and Isaac would come in with Isabel lagging behind by five minutes. Then on the rare occasion, like yesterday, all three would come in at the same time.

"Ed, please sit down."

It seemed the routine was thrown off.

Ed raised an eyebrow and took a seat on one couch, sitting squarely in the middle. Spender stood at his desk, one hand raised to massage the bridge of his nose, glasses falling up and down as he did so. Ed tilted his head. "If you don't tell me what's going on I'm gonna tear these couches apart and eat them right in front of you."

Spender huffed and finally met Ed's eye, brows furrowing under unruly bangs. "I tried to stop this, but Master Guerra wasn't listening…"

"I can already taste the cotton."

"Ed," Spender straightened up, but Ed could see his hands clenching the edges of the desk, as though he was debating breaking the white wood. "An old master of mine, Master Hashimoto, wants to take over as your Master."


	3. Chapter 3

_Wednesday_

Isaac was lagging towards the back, sulking about for one reason or another. Who knew with him? Max shrugged the thought off and tried to tune back into whatever Isabel was rambling on about. She was excited about something, but he could still see the bags under her eyes. There was an underlying fear each word. She was acting more gung-ho than usual, and he was sure that it had to be about the same thing that had him losing sleep last night.

The Monsters.

Were they accessories to murder, then? Was it even murder? No, it would have been self defense. Max groaned. The entire thing was giving him a headache. It was way too early in the morning to question the morality of the situation. He'd figure it out in time- they all would.

The familiar two-second tone of a bubble popping sounded from his pocket, and Max whipped his cellphone out to check who'd messaged him. His breath hitched to find a picture of his dad, holding two identical shirts up for the camera, smile awkward, yet endearing had he been in a better mood. He must have had somebody else take it for him, presumably a passing customer in the same store, and he could only imagine he'd made the poor sap take the picture eleven-hundred times.

 _Dad: Which one do you think she'd like?_

He snapped his phone shut and stuck it back in his pocket, but not without Isabel's snoop of a nose peeking over his shoulder. "What was that?"

"Nothing," He glanced at her from the side, her chin still deathly close to his shoulder; she wanted more of an explanation. "My dad has a date this weekend."

"Oh, cool!"

Max sighed. "Yeah."

* * *

"Children!" Spender was on all three of them as soon as they stepped into the clubroom, and Max could tell he was hiding- what, he didn't know- emotion, deep and strangling and rocky, under a huge smile. After all, Isabel and Ed had to learn it from somewhere. They were hardly in the door before he was up and out of his desk chair, sound so sudden that Isaac took a startled step back. Max felt his own heart skip a beat, and he raised his voice to the same pitch with intent to be just as obnoxious.

"What! Children what!"

Spender's shoulders slouched, just the smallest bit, enough for Max to notice. "Ed is already on patrol! You should join him," the corners of his lips faltered "considering…"

 _Considering?_ Max frowned, and Isabel took a step forward beside him.

"Wha-?"

"No time to talk!" Spender's hands were on their shoulders, twisting them around and pushing them firmly out the door so fast that they both nearly stumbled into Isaac, who'd still resigned himself to hanging out at the threshold. "I'm sure Ed would love your company! Have fun!"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Max squeaked. "God, you have the push of a flipping bulldozer!"

* * *

Isaac wasn't entirely surprised when they came down the north hall and heard screaming- that was normal for Ed. The boy was the epitome of chaos wrapped in a short, crazy-eyed spectral. The surprise, and it wasn't even a huge surprise, was that all of the screaming was coming from within the girl's restroom. The doors to both bathrooms were wide open, and in the reflected light, they could see the shadows of Ed doing… SOMETHING that was freaking the girls out.

Max got to holding his sides, bending over, tittering to himself, while Isabel rushed in after him, spectral aura flaring at her fists. "Ed! Ed, what are you even doing?" Isaac came to stand beside Max, hands in his pockets, eyebrow raised, waiting patiently for their "teammates" to return. Something crashed in the bathroom. He rolled his eyes.

The screaming came to a stop, and Isabel emerged with Ed in toe, one hand around the collar of his shirt, fist clenching the material so firmly Ed was stumbling to keep up. She stopped mid-stride and turned around, head turned to address the other girls. "Sorry about that! Just grab him and throw him out next time, I promise he's harmless!"

It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw Ed's face plummet.

Isabel kicked the notch keeping the door open, then forced it closed with the same foot. When she was sure the girls were more preoccupied whispering amongst themselves, she turned to face Ed. Her cheeks were puffed and so was her chest, eyes wild and wide- exasperated. "Ed, what did you think you were doing?"

He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the bathrooms. "There was a poltergeist. I was trying to catch it."

Isaac's brows furrowed. "And you couldn't wait until Isabel got here to take care of it?"

He'd never seen Ed go red in the face, but his cheeks were the color of the brightest apple on the brightest red desk; even his nose, scrunched up and pointed down as he stared at his feet, turned cherry. Ed shrugged it off, but turned his head to the side.

* * *

One thing was becoming abundantly clear: Max had the sort of relationship with Isabel he'd wished Max would have with him. He and Ed were left to trace their footsteps, follow each turn they took when they should have all been side by side. Instead, they were a few feet ahead, laughing to themselves like everything was fine and they weren't ignoring the other half of their little "club". Isaac could feel his insides beginning to burn, feel his fists clenching at the straps of his bag.

Max was cackling at something Isabel had said- what is was, he couldn't hear, he was lagging too far behind. Ed began to slump beside him, fingers twiddling at his own straps, one hand in his pocket with his chin nearly resting upon his chest. He wasn't even sure Ed knew where he was going anymore. Isaac sighed and brushed the familiar feelings off.

And then, Max just had to go and say something stupid:

"I'm surprised Isaac didn't go into a whole speech about how morally wrong it was for Ed to charge into the girl's restroom."

Vexation returned, and Isaac couldn't see himself shoving it down again this time. His eye twitched, and he glowered at Max's back. "His intent wasn't malicious, of course I wouldn't."

Max halted at his next step, turning around to watch Isaac with a smug little grin on his face. Isaac clenched a fist. "So you can still talk! I was starting to think you went brain-dead."

Really? So that's how it was gonna be. Isaac's chest ignited. "If anyone's brain-dead here, it's you! You're the one doing all of that stupid parkour without a helmet!"

Max raised an eyebrow, and even Isabel, who'd continued walking, turned around to catch the conversation. "At least I look cool when I'm falling, which is more than you can say, ever."

Maybe he shouldn't have gone for such a low blow, maybe if he hadn't taken the dirty shot things would have gone differently, but Isaac was so beyond his limits, so beyond caring anymore, that he wasn't thinking about Doorman, or the potential consequences that may come to bite him back; he just wanted to hit Max where it hurt. "Cool, huh? Is that what you call crying like a little baby in gym these days? Cool?"

He'd done it, then. The patronizing smirk that'd been on Max's face fell through, leaving only a curled snarl. His aura grew inches above him, flickering just above his shoulders. "I wasn't crying, Stormageddon! And even if I was" he gestured to his arm, which he'd been wearing laced up in bandages for the last three weeks "I had a friggin' broken arm!"

Isabel had turned around completely then, eyes narrowed, legs positioned to move should she need to. Ed took a step back, falling out of line with Isaac as his blue aura, which he hadn't even realized was flaring, began to grow and take up the space he'd been.

Isaac scoffed, and when he spoke, he spit the words out. "What the matter, Max? Afraid we'll know how chicken you actually are?" The lowest blow he'd take, the worst one, and it still wasn't enough to break Max. "Why don't you just admit you can't even handle your _old man_ going on a date?"

Max's aura flared, higher than any of them, higher than the ceiling, seeping into the floor above. His eyes went wide, fists so tight Isaac could see them going pale. And then he bared his teeth, one step toward Isaac.

"You think you know me that well, huh? That's really cute, Isaac, because I've never cared less about a person in my life. You think you can read me the way everyone else can read you? We're not even friends" Isaac felt everything in him fall from its place, every organ collapsing as though there'd been nothing to keep him together at all. "We never were."

He was moving before he even knew was what happening. One moment Max was standing a few feet from him, and the next, his fist was within centimeters of Max's face. Isaac gaped, fist trembling in Isabel's hand, wrapped like a snake around his own. His gaze followed the trail of his sleeve up to his fist, then to Max- Max, who was pale, and still, and watching Isaac like he was _scared_ of him.

 _No. Oh no._

He looked to Isabel, who was staring him down the way he'd seen her stare down aggressive spirits. Her eyes were dark, dark and paralyzing, and they were daring him to step out of line again. Her hand clenched his fist, a silent warning.

He would not cry. He would not cry.

He wrenched his fist out of her hand and brushed by the both of them, eyes falling anywhere else. "Whatever," he mumbled. "I knew that."

* * *

He should have been the one to step up and hold Isaac back. Instead he'd stood in the background and watched it all like some stupid kid too stupid to help anyone. If Isabel hadn't been fast enough, what would have happened? Would Max and Isaac have gotten into a fist fight? Who would have won?

Ed sighed and shook his head from side to side. He brought his chin up so he could better see Isabel, who was walking a few feet ahead, shoulders back, head squarely on her shoulders. She was confident, and strong, and smart- and Ed was just, well, Ed. He was scrawny where his hands grasped his arm, and weak-willed in the face of confrontation that he couldn't just beat down. He was a coward, and here he'd promised himself he'd be a man for her, to fight for his place at her side. Of course she was getting tired of him; he didn't deserve to call himself her best friend, let alone live under the same roof. How could she care that he was leaving for another dojo? He wouldn't miss himself if he wasn't around.

But, in the new dojo, he could become a man worth missing.

Of course! Ed stood straighter, a smile inching from one side of his face to the other. How had he not thought about it before? With a new dojo, he could grow into a master spectral! He could become the best spectral the paranatural world had ever seen! If he worked hard enough, he could become strong!

He could become a man worthy enough to stay by her side!

"Ed? What's got you so excited to get home?"

She'd noticed him when he'd passed her by, bolting down the sidewalk with a skip in his step, spirit refreshed and mind replenished. He turned to look over his shoulder, slowing to jog in place so she could see his face. "Just excited for dinner, is all!" Isabel chuckled under her breath and raised an eyebrow, but followed him when he began once again with a spring in his step.

"All right!"


	4. Chapter 4

Books on spirits, books on ghosts, normal old biology books…

Isabel was up to her waist in useless, outdated knowledge of spectral anatomy. The few books she'd found on monsters were so thin and worded so convolutedly that they were hardly of any help.

"Something, something.. The end times are upon us? Ugh!" Another book, completely useless! She tossed it across the room, watching as it hit one of the numerous bookshelves and slid to the floor on its spine. She was sure to get a word or two from her grandfather about the importance of the knowledge each book in the library held, but at the moment she couldn't have possibly cared less. She cared so little she was almost spiteful, and had to fight the urge to break and tear every book they had to offer her bloodthirsty hands.

Nothing. There was nothing on monsters. How could there be absolutely nothing? It didn't make sense.

She vaguely wondered if Eightfold (she swallowed hard) had eaten it all, if maybe she'd fed every book worth anything to her, at the moment, to Eightfold back then.

 _Now that I think about it, maybe if Eightfold were here…_

Isabel choked on air and swallowed it down, because she'd been over this. Eightfold was gone. She needed to get used to that.

Isabel gripped the edge of the table and squeezed it between her tense fingers, grinding her teeth and bowing her head even though there was nobody around to see her struggling. She wasn't going to start crying again; Eightfold wouldn't have wanted that. She began holding her breath, counting down until, finally, the moment her eyes stopped burning and her chest wasn't heaving.

Isabel Guerra did not cry.

* * *

He knew it was useless, that any attempt to talk Zoe off of whatever train of thought she'd settled on was no less difficult than taking a fish from a bear, but this wasn't about her and it wasn't even about his mood- this was about their dad, their dad and his right to be an adult and do adult things, like going out on dates.

He sighed. _This isn't gonna go over well._ It took three knocks for Zoe to answer her bedroom door.

She looked up at him, squinting at him as if he'd already committed a crime. He stuffed his hands and his pockets and gave her the most nonchalant, bored look he could find it within himself to muster. "Hey, Zoe. What are you up to?"

"Playing with my dolls" her voice dropped. "What's it to you?"

"Well," _How do I word this?_ "I wanted to talk to you about Dad."

She "hmph"ed and slammed the door in his face. Max groaned and threw his head back, eyes darting around the ceiling, searching for an answer where he'd never get one. "Zoe, come on, now! We've gotta talk about this eventually!"

"There's nothing to talk about!" It wasn't his imagination, at least he didn't think so; her voice raised an octave from where it had been, the tell tale sign she was on the verge of tearing him limb from limb. "He's trying to replace Mom!"

"No, Zoe, he's not! He's trying to live!"

"And he has to cheat on mom to do that?"

"He's not cheating on Mom, Zoe! She would have wanted him to move on!"

"Well it's not just his life, anymore!"

Max froze.

He had no argument for that. His mind reeled and reeled for something to say- anything- to put Zoe in her place, make her see things from his perspective, but every train of thought he followed fell through. Yeah, their dad was responsible for their well-being, and yeah they should be the most important people in his life, and yeah he was an adult and it was his job to protect them- he shook his head. No, no. Their dad deserved to be happy, too. She was being ridiculous. "Grow up, Zoe!"

 _Yeah, nice one, Max. She won't recover from that one anytime soon._

When he got to his room, he threw himself on the bed, not minding the bounce or the fall his bedsheets took from the mattress to the floor. "Ugh!" His sweaty wrists reached up to cover his eyes in a vain attempt to close off the light, rid himself of his headache.

He could sense Pj sitting- hovering- beside him before he even went to speak. "Is there something wrong?"

Max waved one hand, but kept his eyes shut. "Just Zoe. She's being herself. She's all mad that Dad has a date this weekend when she should be, I don't know… happy for him!"

Pj fell silent, and for a moment Max fell into the assumption that he'd moved away. Lefty was good, though silent company. Probably better than he was in the state he was in. Heaven knew he was exhausted. There was enough drama going on with Isaac and the monsters and whatever was up between Isabel and Ed. He didn't need the added drama at home, too. _What is up with the people around me lately? Did everyone catch Isaac's melodrama bug?_

"It's okay to feel upset, you know."

Max cracked open one eye and inched his wrist from his face. Pj was floating just over his bed, hands clasped at his chest, eyes downcast and lips thin. The bags under his eyes seemed momentarily darker, and guilt flittered through Max at the thought that he'd caused that. "Huh?"

"It's okay to feel upset! Even if you love your dad, it's going to take time to get used to a new woman."

Max winced, gaze falling to his bedroom door, where he heard his dad (maybe a burglar, but he doubted they'd come to the second floor first when there was so much to raid below) was coming up the stairs, feet clomping on each step. "Thanks, Pj…" He sat up and took off his cap, tossing it somewhere to the side- he'd find it in the morning. "I should probably get to bed now."

Pj had doubts Max had heard him, but he'd been listening, and he tried to communicate that in a small, what was probably awkward, smile. He returned the grin with a tilt of his head before fading through the door, muttering something about Lefty watching the TV all day.

* * *

 _Thursday_

The clubroom was bright in the morning, especially in the earlier AM. It was something Spender loved about his early trips to work. Settling down with a cup of hot coffee, nestling into his desk chair to finish off paperwork for the Consortium or last minute essays. This morning had deviated from the normal, as he'd called Ed in to meet him earlier than he might usually show up for morning patrol.

He'd be training under another one of his old masters come the following week, and he felt it his duty as Ed's teacher to prepare him. Now, that wasn't to say Master Hashimoto was a rough man- no, he was quite the opposite of Master Guerra.

That was precisely why he and Ed had to have this talk.

"They teach in two completely different ways. Don't walk in prepared to fight- walk in prepared to find peace."

He'd expected Ed to pay no attention, maybe even start drawing midway through his warnings and drop his sense of concentration altogether, but Spender's most eccentric student sat still on the couch, nodding along where he should, and answering whenever a question was asked. He had to admit; it was unusual watching Ed with such concerted effort, in fact, it left him feeling… unsettled.

Spender paused in his pacing to look at Ed, really look at him, and found still no sign of aloofness. "Ed, are you all right?"

"I could be feeling better if I hadn't had that breakfast burrito on the way over, sheesh."

"No, I mean…" He nibbled his lower lip. "You seemed so opposed to training under Master Hashimoto yesterday. Is there a reason you're, well-?"

"- Listening avidly?"

"Yes?"

"Nope, not really." Ed swung his legs and placed his hands between them on the couch, gripping the seams that held the cushions together. "Just think a little change will be good for me 's all!"

That was a lie. Ed was horrible with change. It was a miracle they got him to middle school, let alone their current attempts to send him an hour away from the only place he'd ever known as home. Spender mustered up his warmest smile, but he could already see Ed was unperturbed. "Are you sure there isn't anything wrong?"

"Yep! Just excited!"

Spender folded his hands behind his back. "Right…" If he knew Ed- and he did- then he'd break eventually. He was the low-maintenance member, after all. "Well then, where was I?"

* * *

Isaac hadn't shown up to walk to school with them that morning, and honestly? Max was perfectly fine with that. He had no idea what his problem was, but that kid needed to sort himself out before he said something he'd regret. The more time he spent around Isaac, the more he understood why Isabel had been keeping him at arm's length- blacklisted or not. Besides, he thought as she came up the hill, the lack of sleep in her eyes suggested confidential information was about to be exchanged.

"I wasn't able to find much, but from what I could understand, spectral monsters are inherently aggressive, like Mister Spender said." Isabel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, focused on the road ahead of them. Max watched her from the side, silently egging her on to continue. She caught his gaze and her frown, which was already deep to begin with, fell further. Her eyes narrowed, not at him, but at whatever was running through her head. "What he didn't mention was that they can't usually speak perfect english."

"Huh?"

"They're monsters, Max. How can they find the will to speak when they're expending all of their energy on trying to pull apart? Or, you know, killing things." The last part fell under her breath. "Either way, it was weird that the monster from Tuesday knew how to talk. It's less like it escaped on its own and more like…"

Max's grip tightened around his backpack. "...Somebody was threatening us."

Isabel nodded. "It looks like The Consortium is gearing up for war."

* * *

"How is it that we've completely run out of stories to print?" Suzy swung around at her desk, leaning so far into her seat that her lower back fell where her butt should have been. "The well is completely dry, and we're not even in eighth grade!"

"Oh, I don't know, Suzy." Collin mumbled more to himself than to her. It wasn't like she was going to hear a word he said anyway. "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we live in a relatively quiet suburban neighborhood?"

"Nonsense!" Yep. Not a single word. "There has to be something here! It's just under our nose! I can smell it!" Suzy sprung forward, leaning so far into the desk he feared she may break it under her weight. Her eyes scanned the computer screen where the template for the school newspaper sat open. It'd been blank since Monday, when she found out the school wouldn't let her run the story about Miss Baxter's most recent breakup.

Collin cocked an eyebrow, glancing up from his breakfast- an apple, crackers, and a juice pouch. "Oh? And what does it smell like?"

There were three solid knocks at the door, gentle but just loud enough for Suzy's "journalist" ear to pick up on. "It smells, _Collin_ , like a visitor!" She waved to the door gracefully, leaning back in her chair as though she'd been sitting straight to whole time. "Be a dear and answer that for me, would you?"

"For the last time," he said as he stood up to open the door "I am not your menial tasks boy!"

Isaac O'Connor stood on the other side, looking disheveled and tired in the wrinkled jacket Collin swore he'd seen him wearing yesterday. The clothes underneath were different, but the droop in his eyes told Collin the reworn article was more accurate to the mood. He inched the door open a bit wider, brows furrowing. "Isaac? What are you doing here?"

"Is Dimitri in?"

That was a surprise. Nobody from The Activity Club ever came around asking for Dimitri- well, any of them, really, but that was probably Suzy's fault. He already knew Dimitri hadn't arrived yet, and probably wouldn't for another forty minutes, but he still turned to look over his shoulder, as though looking for him in an otherwise empty room. "Uh, no, he's not."

Isaac stepped inside without invitation, closing the door behind him. His tired, darkened eyes narrowed, and his voice fell from polite to gruff. "Then I've got a story for your editor in chief, and this one might make her a household name."

Suzy peeked around from the side of the computer.


	5. Chapter 5

Ed didn't show up for evening patrol, and neither had Isaac. Isaac was expected, well, maybe not expected but certainly not questionable. Ed, on the other hand, was weird. He wasn't the type to skip out on evening patrols unless he was sick to his stomach or something of equal disarming value. She might not have been so worried if he hadn't supposedly shown up early for morning patrol and gone out on his own. Showing up early? To school? Ed? It just didn't make sense, especially with how obsessively clingy he'd been as of recent.

Isabel trudged through the front doors of the dojo, desperately debating between a hot bath and going straight to bed. "I'm home!" She called out to no one in particular. When there was no response, she huffed and went for the stairs.

She had one handle on the railing when she heard Ed yelp. Isabel turned around to find Ed sparring, unsupervised, with one of the older students. She hadn't broken a sweat, but Ed was struggling to get off the ground, heaving and bending over so that he could catch his breath.

"Impressive! You've taken every hit like a real champ, kid! Getting up when you're down's only half of it, though. You've gotta try to land one on me, got it?"

Isabel couldn't see his face from where she stood, but she could see his head bobbing up and down.

With a war cry, he charged forward, fist in the air. The older student sidestepped him. With one hand, she reached over and gripped him by the hood of his jacket. Ed took a second to catch up, and began squirming as she lifted him off his feet. He squeaked and she swung him in circles before tossing him across the room like a hammer throw. Ed hit the floor and went rolling, so far and fast that his back collided with the wall. Ed stuck his tongue out and exhaled. The older student threw her head back and laughed.

"You've got a long way to go, shrimp!"

Ed grinned, like an idiot, and got on his knees, rubbing the back of his head and laughing it off.

Isabel's nose scrunched, and she turned so pointedly that her hair flipped over her shoulder on her way up the stairs.

* * *

His dad had been looking up recipes for the better half of an hour, and Max was getting sick of approving of a meal idea, only for his dad to decide that it still wasn't good enough and continue searching. He knew the man was nervous, but geez! He would have thought The Pope was visiting!

 _I wonder if he got like this about his first date with Mom…_

Max shook his head almost violently and fixed how he sat so that the front legs of his chair were settled on the floor again. Zoe padded into the kitchen, empty glass in hand, on her way over to the fridge. He groaned. "I don't get why you won't just order out?"

"I guess I could, but I want dinner to be homemade!"

"You're gonna scare this woman straight out of our house…"

"Good." Max turned to glare at Zoe, who pretended she wasn't aware of the venomous eyes on her back. She took her filled cup and retreated from the room without so much as a parting word. _What a spiteful little brat!_ Max could see his aura inching up at his hands. It wasn't a lot, but it was a clue that he needed to calm down. She was just so irritating! Why couldn't she see that Dad dating wasn't about her, or him, or even their mom! Max sucked on his teeth.

"Do you think she'll ever understand?"

Max looked towards his dad, and found that any flames that had started had been long since extinguished. The old man was smiling, but it was soft, and his brows furrowed so that they nearly met at his forehead, eyes searching Max for something he wasn't sure he could give.

Max forced himself to chuckle, and grabbed the back of his neck. "I'm sure she'll come around. She's just stubborn."

His dad sighed and took off his glasses, raising a hand to massage between his eyes. "Just like your mother."

Max fell silent and still.

"Yeah…"

* * *

Master Hashimoto's dojo was nothing like Master Guerra's. The building had width and not height, like a Japanese mansion, and, though he kept it to himself, Ed was reminded of Isaac. What greeted him at the front gates was a pond that spanned the length of the garden, a small dark wood bridge between him, Spender, and the front doors of the mansion. He vaguely wondered how the man could afford all of it, and what exactly he'd done on the side because he sure as heck knew The Consortium didn't pay for any of that. Spender placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and ushered him forward. _This is for Izzy. It's for Izzy. It's for Izzy._

The inside of the mansion was just as large as the outside, and spirits ran amuck through the home, some flying as high as the ceiling, just sort of hanging there. A line of students sat within what appeared to be a designated square, something Ed had learned to associate with sparring, but judging by what Mister Spender had told him, he wouldn't be doing a whole lot of that here. By the looks of it, they were all meditating, eyes closed, breathing level.

Spender tapped his shoulder, and he glanced up.

Master Hashimoto was a tall man with a beard as long as Ed's entire body, and he walked with such certainty and grace that he almost thought the man was gliding. He dressed more like a wizard than a spectral master, one spiked hat, designed from one end to the seams with constellations; his robes, Ed guessed, could have gone either way. His shoulders were back and his eyes were warm, and much of the uncertainty Ed had been feeling washed away near an instant. "Welcome, Edward."

"Just Ed's fine."

"Ah, Ed, then." He gestured for Ed to follow him into the next room, which was separated by a door that slid as opposed to turned. Hashimoto waved goodbye to Spender, who bowed as Ed turned to look at him, and caught his eye only when he stood straight. _I'm still nervous, here!_

Spender smiled, lips quivering like he was trying to hold back a chuckle, and gave Ed a thumbs up. _Wha- okay, thanks. That's a load of help._ Ed tried to smile back, but heard Master Hashimoto calling to him from the room he'd been lead to.

* * *

Hashimoto had been silent in the time it took for him to prepare tea, leaving Ed to squirm around on the pillow where he sat on his legs. One was already asleep, and the other was stinging because his butt was sitting on the heel of that foot. Hashimoto was less imposing than Guerra, but things at the other dojo were less stuffy, more casual than the place he was sitting now. _I already miss home, and I'm not even moving out yet!_ "You seem unsettled."

"Ah, I uh… heh. I guess I am."

Hashimoto set out two small cups, each with paintings drawn along the sides. One depicted a goose, wings spread wide, the length rising over her children so the tips of her wings reached the side of the cup. The other was of a small monkey, sitting alone under a roughly painted tree, its tail wrapping around its legs. "Then let's get to know you." Ed drew his attention from the cups to face his new Master, hands clenching in his lap. "What's the spirit in your tool like? Do you two get along?"

"Uh," Ed reached up and tugged at the strings of his jacket. "I guess we're pretty cool. We don't talk much."

"Do you like your spirit?"

Ed bit down on one cheek. "I… guess?"

Hashimoto hummed and poured tea into the cup with the monkey on it first, then into the cup with the goose. "Tell me, Ed," he set the pot down with such ease it made Ed a tad envious. "Do you think about your parents often?"

"What?"

His voice was a little higher than he'd intended. Then again, he hadn't meant to react at all. His eyes met Hashimoto's, wide as his trembling hands against his jeans. He grasped them and squeezed. Master Hashimoto seemed unbothered, and it occurred to Ed that he may have been expecting that reaction. He didn't even blink as he raised the goose to his lips, sipping soundlessly. Ed swallowed hard and retreated into himself once more, pulling his shoulders in and bowing his head.

"Drink your tea, Ed. It will get cold."

"Oh, right."

He held the monkey with uncertain fingers, part of him stumbling over Hashimoto's questions and the other terrified of breaking the teacup. He glanced past the rims at Hashimoto, who had already set his down and was waiting patiently for Ed to do the same. He took a quick, loud sip and set it back on the table.

"Tell me, why is it you chose to train with me?"

Ed's eyes widened. "I had a choice?"

Master Hashimoto laughed, and drew the cup to his lips again. "No, but you did choose to start training at my dojo ahead of schedule." Ed squeezed his cup, running his thumb along the monkey. "You seem eager to begin. Any reason why?"

Ed tried to come up with an excuse, any excuse, but all that came to mind was _Izzy_. All he could think about was her laugh and the way she'd punch his arm when he said something goofy. He thought about the way she moved when she was on the training field, each swing so fluent, each kick so natural, and how he'd sit there for all of her matches and still feel content to watch her for hours. He thought about all the times he wondered: " _Could I do that?_ "

Isabel was a prodigy, and somehow he'd been lucky enough that she got stuck with him the entirety of their lives. He got to watch her become the spectral the world was waiting for, the reason he bothered training with a tool at all. She'd been understanding, and cool, and defensive of him since they'd first shook small, baby-fat hands, and he admired her for it, admired who Isabel was.

And she was tired of him.

His cheeks burned hotter than the cup of tea he held, though the steam didn't help.

"Ah, so it's about a girl."

His heart leaped so high up his throat he swore he'd vomit it up. "Wait a minute, it's not-!"

Hashimoto laughed aloud and finished off his tea, tilting his head back to find the last drops with his tongue. When he was done, he set the cup on the table and grinned. "I'll be honored to teach you, Ed."

* * *

"Are we really going to believe him?"

"We can't afford not to." Suzy spoke with finality, but Collin could hear the uncertainty in her voice. She stared down at the paper in her hands, running her thumbs along the edges, tempting the fate of a papercut. She'd kept them on her all day long, too paranoid to take the risk that somebody would see them and think- or do- the worst. Isaac was trusting them to release the story; she couldn't live with herself if it somehow leaked. "We'll have to get him on a recorder next time he comes in."

"Next time who comes in?"

They both jumped, Suzy hiding her hands, and the papers, behind her back, and Collin grasping the edge of the club desk, eyes wide and chest heaving. Dimitri stood at the threshold, head to the side as he shut the door to the clubroom behind him.

"Jesus, man! A little warning next time?"

"Sorry, man." He dropped his bag by the door alongside Suzy's bubblegum pink backpack and Collin's more neutral messenger bag. He strided over to the seat at the end of the table and plopped down, one arm resting over the side. "Sounds like we've got material to work with."

"Oh? No, no, not really, no." Suzy backed up slowly, one hand blindly reaching for the filing cabinet that stood at the side of the desk. Dimitri watched her, eyebrows raised. The palm of her hand hit cold metal, and she lightly tugged at the handle to find it unmoving. _It's locked? Oh, Suzy, of course it's locked! You're the one who locked it, you dummy!_

"Sounded to me like you were talking about getting a quote."

Suzy shrugged and made probably the worst attempt at a giggle in her life "O-oh, well…?"

"It's a potential story, but it's a weak one." Dimitri turned to look at Collin, who distanced himself from the desk. Behind his back, he placed the key to the cabinet in Suzy's open hand, giving her one subtle press to let her know what it was. She gaped at him, eyes following his form as he crossed the room to stand in front of Dimitri- effectively distracting him.

Her fingers traced the key, fiddling along the edges as the tips got closer to the very end of it. She used her other hand, the back of her fingers, to find the hole, and stuck the key in and twisted it as silently as she could.

Dimitri eyed Collin up and down, at least it felt like it. "And why isn't it 'really' a story?"

"Because it sucks. It's some conspiracy theory about Starchman trading banned children's game cards in back alleys at night. It was an anonymous tip and we've got no other leads."

"Point me in their direction and I'll get the quote you need."

Suzy closed the filing cabinet and locked it. In a moment of out-of-character silence, Suzy chose to watch her club members, too curious about Collin's sudden ability to lie with ease, to do much else. Collin glanced at her, and she took the moment to wink at him.

He smiled and looked back to Dimitri, who was still waiting patiently to receive his mission, leaning back in his chair, head rested against the back of his hand. "We were hoping to confront Starchman directly, actually."

"Do you want to die?"

"Suzy's the one with a deathwish."

"Fine, I'll interview him myself! But you guys are wusses!"

Dimitri shut his eyes and dug his head into his arms- that way, they couldn't see the way his smile fell as he drifted into deep thought. _What could be so important that Collin would lie through his teeth like that?_


	6. Chapter 6

_Friday_

He'd been waiting for what seemed like centuries, or what certainly felt like it. Isabel was still nowhere in sight, not that he would have seen her, as he'd been pretending to tie his shoes for the last twenty minutes (she didn't need to know he was waiting on her), but she'd have said something if she was passing him by.

Max leaned back against the wall beside the sliding doors to the corner store and huffed, sliding down so that he could sit on the sidewalk. Propping his head up on one knee, he let his gaze fall upon his view of the city. It was calm, not to mention quiet, unlike Baxbourough and unlike any of the dreams he'd had last night. He flinched, forcing the screams and the tears and the dread that'd been a constant theme throughout all his nightmares, no matter how many times he woke up.

He couldn't even pick out one voice from another. The screams of everyone mingled together in one nondifferentiable mess; he knew he'd heard Isabel, and Spender, and Isaac- and he was nearly certain he'd heard himself. The voices drummed in his mind like a song of dread he couldn't escape, a tune so eerie his insides felt as twisted as the cries following his ears around. It was unsettling. He wasn't even the type to think dreams held much weight, but after being introduced to the world of spirits and ghosts and private rooms in his own mind- anything seemed possible.

Max sighed and ran the closest hand down his face. It wouldn't help him to think about it now. He had a whole school day ahead of him, and he'd be darned if he let the spiritual aspect of his life contaminate the others. As it was, he was sure he was flunking math, and with Baxter under the impression he had a habit of beating the snot out of teachers in his free time, he imagined she wouldn't be the easiest to coax extra credit work from. He blinked; actually, that might have made the opposite true? Either way he needed to boost his grades or the club was gonna have to take a backseat for a while.

It was then that he caught a spec of orange turning the corner to his road. A quick glance in that direction assured that it was Isaac, walking with his head held high, looking like he'd saved an endangered species from extinction; actually, seeing as it was Isaac, that guess actually might have been within the ballpark. _Maybe that's where he's been the last few days._

He hadn't shown up to club, in the morning or the afternoon or the evening, since they'd had that spat in the hallway. Max would have been lying to say the first day bothered him, but the second day certainly had. Yeah, he was still mad, if not furious, with him, but Max had a heart! Isaac hadn't missed a single day since he'd shown up in Mayview! He was used to infighting among himself and the other club members- why would their fight have been any different?

 _Because he tried to hit you._

It did unnerve him that he'd managed to break the pacifist, and he couldn't help but feel guilty for it. Isaac got angry all the time, but if Isabel's reaction was any indication, he never quite got to the point where he was willing to throw punches. He'd been on the edge after their first blowout the day Hijack hit the school, but he'd had no idea it'd been building into… that.

It didn't matter, Max told himself, club skipper or not. He might have crossed a line, but Isaac had, too.

"Hey, Isaac!"

He stopped and turned around. _Here it comes,_ Max thought, _he's going to shrug me off like he always does when he's mad_. Seconds ticked by before any sign of acknowledgement; then, to his surprise, Isaac looked at him and grinned- ear to ear, overtly grinned. But there was something off about it, something so small but so influential that Max had to take note of it. "Yeah?" His eyes. There was something lurking in his lidded gaze, something dark- something wrong.

Max stopped in his tracks, a shiver running down his body as he ingested the creepy, almost malicious smile. _What the actual flip?_ "Where have you been the last two days?"

"Nowhere!" The answer was simple, and with it Isaac had turned back around, headed uphill. Max blinked as he passed right by. _Oh no you don't!_

"You know, just because you've got problems doesn't mean you can shirk your duties." Shirk your duties? Eugh, was this feud turning him into some prancy, know-it-all, brown-nosing jerk? It wasn't like Max did everything he was supposed to do, either, and yet here he was, looking for any button to push on the small list of "Isaac's Buttons" that were yet to be messed with. "You're a member of the club just like the rest of us- morning patrol was supposed to be yours yesterday." Isaac seemed to straighten, going rigid, but the next moment he shrugged and looked over his shoulder.

The smile hadn't gone anywhere, and neither had the look in his eyes. If anything, the look was wider, more unsettlingly genuine. "I'm not angry, Max!" Another cold shiver fell down Max's neck. "I'm over it! I've just been busy, honest!" There was laughter in his voice, and if it weren't for that smug little grin, Max might have believed him.

He glanced behind him, searching for any sign that Isabel was on her way up the slope, but found only spirits, trodding along like usual. Well, he guessed there wasn't any harm in just following Isaac up… _maybe to keep an eye on him_.

Max pulled his backpack further onto his shoulders and jogged along to catch up, falling a few steps behind.

* * *

What a crappy way to start a Friday. Isabel climbed the last of the stairs to the hallway where she'd, by habit, come every morning. First, Ed wouldn't get up the first five times she'd tried to kick him out of bed, and she had a sneaking suspicion that it was because he came home so late. When she asked? Nowhere. He said he'd been nowhere. She huffed and tossed her backpack on the floor, electing to kick it to the clubroom instead.

Where did he get off lying to her? What happened to her best friend, the guy who couldn't lie to save his life? The guy who never left the house and avoided training at all costs? Now she never knew where he was, and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why he took a sparring match any and every chance he got! Who was this stranger and where had he put Ed- her Ed? First he abandoned her when she needed him- really needed him for the first time in, like, a half a decade- and now he had the gall to completely change personalities over night!

She exhaled through her nose.

Whatever.

One last kick and she stood before the door to the clubroom, gazing upon the door with such misplaced anger she feared she'd burn a hole in the glass. "Calm down, Isabel" she took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as she knew how. "No need to bite Max's head off for not being there this morning, no matter how badly you want to." She couldn't blame him, she supposed. She'd been later than usual trying to get Ed in gear. The only reason she made it to the clubroom on time was because she eventually gave up; if Ed was late, that was his problem. _Maybe he should come home earlier, then._

She picked up her backpack and pressed the door open.

Max and Isaac- _Took him long enough,_ she mused- sat waiting on the couches, Max lounging over the cushions, chatting with Mister Spender about this or that, Isaac leaning against the back of the other couch, toying around with his phone. Spender greeted her in so many words, and she replied shortly; she couldn't be bothered this morning. He noticed, she could tell by the twitch in his smile, but he wasn't going to bring it up right then.

"I believe it's your turn to patrol today, Isabel."

"Great," she muttered and turned to Max, who was already sitting up. That was the new normal, the two of them against the spirit-infested school. She was beginning to think of the two of them as a good cop bad cop team- ya know, if the good cop had also been a bad cop, because if they'd actually sat down and talked about it, there was no way either of them would agree to be the good cop. "You coming with?"

"Sure!" Max hopped up and slipped his backpack on, following Isabel to the door.

If she hadn't been paying attention, she might not have seen Max and Isaac looking at each other; it was cold on one side, calculating on the other. She took the moment to observe the silent conversation, watching the curl of Isaac's lips and the narrow of Max's eyes. SHe didn't need to see auras to feel the tension. Max was trying to communicate, and without a breath, Isaac's eyes shredded every word. Max stiffened beside her, and then they were out the door.

Spender sighed. "Just another morning, hm?" He'd noticed it too, of course, what was left unspoken between the two. He might have known Isabel best, but that didn't mean he was clueless everywhere else. It only took a little teacherly concern to notice the way Isaac was dancing around everyone, pulling away, holding back. There was something less passive there, too; in the outstretched hand Isaac had set between himself and the club, there was a mystery sitting in his palm- and nobody knew more about secrets than Richard Spender.

Isaac pushed off the couch, reaching down to grab his bag without so much as a word. Whatever conversation that might have been died on stale air. Spender followed Isaac with his eyes on his way to the door, one step after him as he reached for the handle. "You don't have to leave just because Isabel and Max left, Isaac?"

Isaac stopped to open the door, turning the handle with an aloofness Spender hadn't been aware Isaac had. When the door creaked open, he took a step into the hallway, and with a voice so distant it felt like it hit from yards away, he said "I know."

Spender's eyes widened as the door shut before him.

* * *

Ed grunted and cracked his neck on both sides, wincing at the knots that'd kept him up all night. While sparring wasn't as common at Hashimoto's dojo, it was rigorous, and he was sure his opponent had as many bruises as he did by the end of it. He was finding it difficult to meditate, but it was already making a difference in his fluidity. It was the difference between a bear and a snake- his body felt smoother, like a loose ribbon instead of stiff bone. Considering he'd only been through a day of training, that was great! "Can't wait to see where I am in a week!"

As he began his trek up the stairs leading to the familiar hallway where the clubroom resided, he nearly skipped. He felt great! He'd be man enough for Izzy in no time!

He heard her voice somewhere down the hall, then, laughing about something he didn't quite catch. He nearly lost his breath- it'd been too long since he heard that laugh. He'd missed it more than he'd missed anything before, not that he'd ever had a chance to miss much. She came around the corner like a visual tidal wave, hair flipping as she twisted around with so much force he'd have thought there'd been a breeze. He smiled wide and raised a hand to wave. "Hey Izzy-!"

And she passed right by him.

Max was close behind, but Ed hardly even noticed Max's casual salute as he slid down the staircase railing.

He stood there by himself for an undetermined set time, doing nothing but staring like a statue at the place she'd been moments ago.

* * *

"One! Two! Three! Four! You've been down too long, Ed! Stand!"

Ed winced. From his bruised head to his swollen waist to his battered ankles, everything hurt. He wasn't sure how he'd endured so much torture. He pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees, grunting at the stinging at his side. The other student- Nicky- had landed a hit hard enough that it might have knocked him out yesterday; today, it took all the air out of him. He blinked his eyes clear of the blur and looked to his opponent, who was standing in position, waiting for him to get back up.

He had to get back up. He had to…

 _And then he'd remember raven hair hitting his face, and the way it felt to have something that left him breathless leave his lungs constricting like she'd strangled him from the chest._

The stinging got worse, and his hands slipped out from under him. He slid down and hit his chin on the matt, hand at his side still grasping his shirt.

Master Hashimoto waved, and the student dropped stance and backed off. He approached Ed with the caution one would typically handle a domesticated animal, bending down so that both knees hit the floor.

"Why can you not stand?"

 _Sweet smile turning thin to see him standing there, leaving him there…_

"Just" Ed huffed and pushed himself off the floor again "not in the right mind, that's all."

He nearly reached out to grab Hashimoto's shoulder on his way back up, but thought better of it and forced his back straight. Master Hashimoto sighed and stood again, turning off the designated training square with the air of disappointment about his raised shoulders. He raised one hand and dropped it like a knife, signaling for the fight to start again.


	7. Chapter 7

_Saturday_

Suzy wasn't one to leave the clubroom unless absolutely necessary, meaning, barring classes and interviews, she was the journalism club's gatekeeper and defender, the proverbial judge and jury. That was why Dimitri had to wait to act until the weekend, when even Suzy wasn't hanging back- not for lack of trying, actually; she'd been kicked out of the school by an on-duty school deputy more than the school would probably admit. Next time meant suspension, and suspension for Suzy meant no weekly paper, not that anybody read it in the first place.

Dimitri ducked around the corner leading into the hallway, leaning forward to see where the lingering school deputy would head. He was an old man, not quite the age of the school nurse, but certainly getting there. He scratched at his bald head, unintentionally inching his working hat as far back as it could go without tipping off.

"Eh, coulda sworn I'd heard somethin'."

He readjusted the hat and turned to walk to the other end of the hall- away from the clubroom.

Dimitri turned the corner and padded over to the door, an ever-watchful eye following the officer down the hall as far as he could see him. He set one hand on the knob and turned it, sliding the door open one centimeter at a time. The lock on the door to their clubroom had broken somewhere in their sixth grade year and, courtesy of their inattentive club leader, was still yet to be fixed. It drove Suzy up the wall, and was also why she put her chore money up to pay for the lock on the filing cabinet- Dimitri's current obstacle.

He slid the door shut behind him.

"Let's see if I still remember how to do this…"

He reached into his pocket, pulling out the bobby pin he'd stashed away before he left the house. Suzy had taught him the ins and outs of lock picking at some point when he first joined, and though he'd paid attention, it wasn't like he went out and actively rummaged through people's things the way she expected him and Collin to. He would have looked for the key, but he knew Suzy too well- if she hadn't taken it home with her, she'd hidden it somewhere even he would never think to search. Picking the lock was the simplest solution- quickest, mostly painless, and effective.

He inched the bobby pin into the slot and went to work unlatching the chain.

 _Sorry about this, Suzy, but you started keeping secrets first._

There was a small snap, and the lock fell loose in his hands. Perfect. "Now to find out what you two were hiding from me."

The top drawer was usually empty, save for a few sticky notes with information Suzy was still convinced was relevant, like phone numbers and names with vague summaries below about why they should be covered. Some dulled pencils could usually be found rolling around in there, alongside some clippings from more legitimate newspapers, like The Mayview Times.

Sitting atop all of that were the papers he'd seen Suzy lock away. Dimitri ignored the **CONFIDENTIAL** stamp on the front and stripped the first page off the stack.

He read the first few sentences, then had to repeat them to himself again to be sure that's what he was actually seeing. Then again, and again. He read them until each word sank in, and the harsh reality of Suzy's latest scoop washed over him like an ice bath, like a tsunami of water so freezing it left him numb and paralyzed, standing there, holding reality in shaking hands.

* * *

The bathroom smelled like aftershave. The living room smelled like aftershave. Heck, the whole flipping house smelled like an Abercrombie and Fitch model came in and took a bath in a tub full of cologne! Max was practically gagging, and he knew even Zoe had to smell it from her room, and her door had been closed all day!

"I'm leaving to finally get all this extra hair trimmed off!" His dad paused at the stairs, raising a hand to fluff the ends of his hair. "Should I keep it a little longer, or go a little shorter?"

Max lingered by the dip in their family room floor, contemplating whether to sit on the couch or stand around until his dad left so he could get back to his bedroom quicker. He wasn't in the mood to watch TV, but his bedroom was even closer to the bathroom than the living room, and if the smell of "Blue Thunder" got any stronger, he was sure he'd asphyxiate. Max shrugged. "I wouldn't cut off too much. Can't have her thinking you're a well put-together business man, can you?" He was trying to get laughs, and usually that was something his dad might have chuckled at, but a quick glance in Dad's direction and he knew where his father's mind was.

He was staring past Max, down the hallway where Zoe's room was. Her door was locked and she hadn't answered anyone all day.

"She'll come around." His dad was focused on him again, looking startled; he'd probably interrupted a train of thought. Max turned away, looking to the floor, nearly hoping Pj would come fading in at any second and he could escape the awkward conversation- or at least push it to a later date, but Pj was somewhere else, wandering in the house in a room that Max wasn't in. Figured. The one time Max wanted him to pop out of nowhere and scare the pants off of him and he wasn't around to. "She's your kid, right? She'll get used to the idea eventually." That was the least mushy way he could figure to word it.

His dad crossed the room just to steal his cap and ruffle his hair. Max winced, but the familiar sensation of a smile was crawling across his lips. "I'll be home by eleven o'clock tonight, son. Be good!" He ducked out of the room before Max could even raise a hand to wave.

* * *

Meditation, though rewarding, was a trial all on its own. Instead of blank thoughts, Ed found his mind wandering to places that were dangerous, places that made him lose all concentration.

 _The way her hair hit his face on her way by._

 _The way she didn't acknowledge him- no look, no word, no wave- like he didn't even exist._

He toppled over. One of the other students cracked open an eye. He waved an apology and got back up on the slab of wood to begin again.

It was over. He'd lost her. Before he even had a chance to fix things, to fix himself, she was gone. He hadn't even tried to speak to her when he came home last night; he couldn't handle a repeat, couldn't handle her ignoring him again because if it happened twice it was real and he wasn't just imagining it. But he knew. She was replacing him, setting Max on the pedestal where he once stood, knocking his statue off and watching his bust shatter into thousands of jagged pieces. And why would she try to clean it all up? She'd only stab herself, and he wasn't worth the effort.

They weren't worth the effort.

He nearly fell off again, leaning too much weight on the front of his legs, but caught himself at the last second, straightening up.

He was almost jealous of Max, but the truth kept logic saddled on his mind; Max was the better friend for her. He wasn't some baby that ran away when she needed him, or some lazy coward who spent all his time messing around with video games instead of training to better himself as a man.

He fell backwards instead of forwards this time, bumping his head on the floor before the rest of him even hit the ground. Grunting, he got back up and tried again.

He was stupid! So, so, stupid!

And now she was gone, and all he could do was watch Max take his place, watch him be the better man… and it was already killing him.

Things would be better for her when he left. She could forget him entirely, and maybe he'd find a new best friend, too, though he already knew none would quite compare. She'd follow him around forever in his wimpy little heart, and it just hurt that he wouldn't be in hers.

He fell over again, and this time, something hard knocked him upside the head. "Ow!" A pair of slippers padded over to stand in front of him. "Hey, who did that?" His eyes trailed up the length of his foot before hitting the robe, and from there on, Ed already knew who he was looking at. He set his chin on the mat and gave his master his most pathetic pout.

Master Hashimoto frowned and looked from Ed to the thin wood he expected every student to balance on when meditating- something Ed still clearly wasn't the best at. "I am impressed you keep getting back up, child, but I am less impressed that you must keep trying. Why can you not concentrate?"

"Just..." Ed rubbed the back of his head where, what he was now sure was, Master Hashimoto's staff had left a small bruise. "I'm just tired is all." He forced himself to sit back up, moving to set his butt on the small plank of wood, thick and wide enough to stand on, hard to balance on- apparently. He presumed correct posture, crossing his legs and closing his eyes.

Hashimoto sighed, and was gone without so much as a drift in the air.

* * *

The clock hit 11:00 only seconds before Max heard his dad coming up the stairs. The first few steps were long between, like he'd been taking two steps at a time, and then the sounds of shoes against wood came faster, and he was coming up to the top in seconds. "Max! My son!"

He was sitting up from his place on the couch slowly, inching the bucket of popcorn off his lap (it'd been the only thing strong enough to cover up the smells of "Blue Thunder"). One hand reached over tentatively to pause the horror movie he'd been watching, heart beating a mile per minute.

 _It went horrible. It went terrible? She said she never wants to see me again?_

His father opened his arms wide, then swung around on his heel with the widest grin he'd had in five years plastered on his face. Unlike the others, not that he hadn't been genuinely ecstatic to move back to his hometown, it was real and it reached his eyes and Max could feel it radiating sunshine in the dead of night from across the living room. "It went great! She was amazing!"

Max's hand froze before one finger ever set on the remote.

"... Oh?"

"She's got her own collection of Star Wars lightsabers- even one of the real models used in the first movie! How awesome is that?"

Max chuckled and raised one butter-covered hand to the back of his neck, wincing even when he tried to smile. "That's- that's great, dad."

His father started jumping up and down like a little kid, balled hands up to his chest, wide and toothy smile inching larger by the second. "And she was so beautiful! Blue hair, blue eyes! I could have sworn I was dating a mermaid!"

"Cool…"

"And you made the right call! She apparently" and here he reached a hand to twirl some strand of hair around his finger "loooves the men with some volume."

He was starting to feel sick. Every bit of his stomach that might have been peckish, every part that might have once wanted some of that popcorn- it was all disgusting. His insides churned, and he very nearly clapped a hand to his mouth to hold back the pound of vomit inching up his throat. It stung, and so did his eyes. The woman in the movie being brutally murdered, via axe-wielding serial killer, shrieked and wept, and Max chewed on the inside of his bottom lip.

He swallowed it all down. "Glad to hear it, Dad."

"It's all because of you, mine loinfruit!"

He didn't even have the energy to correct him, because it was a stupid joke and he didn't much feel like joking at all; in fact he wanted to throw a fit. He wanted to pick up his popcorn and throw it into his dad's face, because his mom's picture was sitting right there on the end table and how could he even think about another woman when her face was right there, right freaking there! It was wrong! It was demeaning! It was cruel and how could he say something like that about another woman?

Max slid off the couch and mumbled some excuse about being tired and not knowing how late it was, but the hour would be carved into his mind for a good while. He didn't even bother to shut the TV off; he was sure his dad would take it over when he went to his room.

He shut the door softly when he wanted to slam it, then rested against the wood and slid down until his rear hit the floor. He heard his dad start the movie over- he was in the clear.

Max rested his head against the door, then brought it up and slammed it back down four times, maybe five, trying to get the stinging in his eyes to go away. He wasn't some teary-eyed brat, he couldn't just cry over something so stupid!

He couldn't cry because his dad was happy…

He choked on air.

… even if it was with another woman.

He didn't want his dad to move on. He didn't want some stranger coming in, trying to be his mom, trying to play a part that never should have been open to begin with! He knew she made him happy, but that didn't mean she should! He tucked his knees to his chest and set his head against them, fingers clawing at the carpet on either side.

 _How am I supposed to even tell him?_


	8. Chapter 8

_Monday_

He hadn't been able to sleep that entire weekend; it escaped him all hours of the night, and even in the day he found his mind plagued by the papers Suzy stowed away in the clubroom filing cabinet. Dimitri wandered the darker halls of the school, all he could do to avoid direct sunlight. His head was throbbing, and he found himself stashing his headphones into his backpack- it was starting to feel like they'd been strangling him.

 _Not me. Not today._

No.

That was a fate that awaited the cause of all of this, the center of every misgiving he'd had in the last two years. He'd strangle him with his own two hands if he had to- and he might have to. Dimitri stood and waited in the South hallway, ducking to the dark side so he could watch traffic pass him by, be the silent observer everyone knew him to be. But now wasn't the time for passiveness, and he had no plans to hold himself back. His awaited company could take whatever heat landed on him for what he'd done- what he was about to do.

A shot of orange passed the corner.

Dimitri lunged out and gripped the collar of his shirt, dragged him into the hallway. He threw him against the wall and held him there, tossing him so hard against the lockers that his body would leave an indent in the metal. The light peeked in from the windows of the hall, and then Dimitri could look up and see Isaac's wide blue eyes peering back at him.

 _He looks scared. Good. He should be._

Isaac's went to scream, but Dimitri dragged his back down the lockers, watching as his face contorted with pain. "If you scream, I will end you right here and now." Isaac's eyes parted slowly, each movement careful, not that any amount of caution was going to help him. Dimitri jabbed a finger into his chest. "Meet up with Suzy today and tell her you were lying."

"Or what?"

He dug a hole in the wall with his bare hand, an inch from Isaac's head. He flinched, and Dimitri pushed him even further against the wall, hoping he could smell the waste of the locker he'd cracked open. "That's what."

Isaac watched him, blue eyes trembling, scared like the fool Dimitri knew him to be- and he should have been. What he was doing was stupid, something he could never take back, and all for the sake of what? There was nothing that came to mind. He'd been awake too long, couldn't think straight, couldn't even begin to wonder why Isaac might make such an utter mistake of himself, or why'd he voluntarily cause so much pain.

Then something happened, and suddenly Dimitri wasn't holding Isaac O'Connor against a wall anymore. No, the boy he held by the collar, his blue eyes faded and became cloudy like the storm he was, and the teeth he'd been baring came to hide behind thin lips. His shoulders squared, and Dimitri could finally see the dark circles forming under his dagger-like eyes. The boy he was threatening was cold, malicious, unpredictable, unafraid. Dimitri held the eye of the hurricane in his hands, but now he was standing in the dead center of a freezing tornado. "So? Go ahead. Do it. You'll get away with it." Dimitri faltered, body freezing in the change of weather, resolve collapsing. He was sure Isaac could see it in his face. "Won't stop Suzy from publishing the paper, will it?"

Two hands, equally as cold as the scowl, set upon Dimitri's fist. Against his will, he let go.

Isaac landed on his feet and pushed Dimitri to the side. Without so much as a glance, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and carried himself to second period.

* * *

Sparring had been more difficult than usual, and Ed could tell that Master Hashimoto knew something was bugging him. He never said a word, just like Spender said he wouldn't, but he could feel the irritation coming off the man in waves.

Or maybe he was just being self conscious.

Ed sighed and reached up to the Guerra dojo, briefly forgetting that it was a twist-and-push door and not a grab-and-pull-to-the-side door. He'd noticed recently that it stood a few feet taller, probably more than that. It towered over him, much like Old Man Guerra himself did. He had no idea how he hadn't noticed it before. Ed huffed and raised both sore arms to shove the door open, pressing inside even though his legs were screaming at him.

The first thing he saw was Isabel, pounding spectral shot after spectral shot at the dummies, standing beside the regular row of students. She didn't miss a single one. Master Guerra seemed impressed; he was stroking his beard and glowering in a not-so-terrifying way- the complacent way. Ed could feel something familiar watching her, raven hair falling from the bun in her hair, posture perfect, concentration in her eyes and her lips and her rigid shoulders.

Pride.

Ed frowned and reminded himself: she wasn't his to be proud of anymore.

He'd resigned himself to thinking encouraging thoughts. Though unrealistic, he found comfort in thinking about a future that could be. Maybe they'd meet again somewhere down the road. Maybe he'd be more of a man, and she'd be the woman he always knew she'd become. He could see them reconnecting already, bonding over shared memories, trading stories about the years they'd missed, and he'd get to hear how she'd done without him there. Maybe they could be friends again, somewhere in the very distant future.

But for the moment, for the years it would take to get him there, he'd be thankful he'd ever had her in his life to begin with.

It was by chance that Isabel caught Ed in her peripheral, but she'd noticed him. She spun to watch him just as he turned to climb up the stairs, head hanging lower than his sagging shoulders. She huffed. _Just got home from whatever he's been doing, huh?_

She turned back to the dummies and readjusted her finger for a better shot. "Where's Ed been going?"

Her grandfather raised his head, humming probably more to himself than in acknowledgement. "He hasn't told you?"

"No." She bit the words out. "We've both been busy."

He laughed to himself, under his breath like he didn't want her to hear him. It irked her, and semi-ruined her concentration, but she was used to his flippant personality, and it wouldn't deter her when she was having a good training session. She had a lot of steam to let off from the last two weeks- nobody was gonna get between her and the dummy that all but had her name on it.

Master Guerra spoke with a smirk to each word. "Master Hashimoto will be taking over for me as his teacher."

" _ **WHAT?!**_ "

Her voice boomed through the dojo, loud enough for people in the distant neighborhood a mile over to hear, and maybe then some. Isabel whipped around, eyes as wide as they could be, jaw unhinged, bun unraveling. Master Guerra looked her over with inexpressive eyes. "He's been visiting Master Hashimoto's dojo on the other side of town. I was impressed he agreed to begin his training early." Guerra's chapped lips inched into a grin, and she almost felt as though he was mocking her intentionally. "I hear he's been improving, if I can hold Hashimoto to his word. Perhaps the freeloader is better fit to be his student, after all."

"What's he going to do about school?" _He'd still have to go to class, right?_

"My foolish pupil brought that up as well. Hashimoto intends to teach him from home." Guerra grunted. "That man has always been lenient with his coin."

Isabel's heart sank, and she looked at her hands, back and forth, watching Ed slip right out of her fingers. She felt them tremble. "Why- why would h-he not tell me?"

Her grandfather shrugged, gaze falling back to the rest of the students, who had since begun firing off spectral shots again. "Who am I to say? You did say you've both been _busy_."

Isabel blinked and looked to him, head bobbing back and forth, hands balling and clamming up.

Then she was off, sprinting up the stairs, no hands on the railing. "Ed!" When she reached the second floor, she all but slid to his bedroom door, reaching up and pounding as fast and as loudly as she could. "Ed! Open up!" When there was no response, she turned the handle and slammed the door wide open, expecting to see him playing video games on mute or something equally as Ed-like. Her eyes drew to the floor where he usually sat. "Is Grandpa telling the truth? Are you really leaving the dojo?"

He wasn't there. Isabel faltered. _Where…?_

Ed snored, and she jumped to find him splayed out across his bed, mouth hanging open as his head tilted over the side, pillow long forgotten.


	9. Chapter 9

_Tuesday_

He'd managed to kick his own butt out of bed earlier in the morning today. He'd taken his sweet time slipping on the usual jeans and the usual t-shirt and the usual blah blah blah, blah blah…

Isabel had woken up a good thirty minutes after him, and though that was, only slightly (read: ten minutes), later than she usually liked to climb out of bed, he couldn't understand why she was rushing around the dojo like she had been. She'd caught his eyes from the railing overlooking the training room as he'd been slipping his bag over his shoulders at the front door, and from then on had gone on to near panicking around the upper level bathroom; he'd heard her kick out one of the other students- specifically the ghost. _Probably didn't wanna die more than once._

Ed frowned. Even if she wasn't going to be a part of his life anymore, he couldn't help but worry. He told himself she'd just seen him and assumed it was later than it actually was… even if he'd been leaving the house earlier lately. He shrugged the thought off and continued down the tunnel to the rest of the city, rolling one shoulder blade. The first few training sessions with Master Hashimoto had been, uh, stressful for him, especially his back and legs, but when he woke up he'd found his body wasn't ringing with dull pain, at least not to the usual extent- a good sign things were starting to pay off.

Ed lifted his shirt and poked at his stomach, pondering the proximity of the moment his chunky baby fat would begin the transformation to a well-maintained six-pack.

"Ed!"

He dropped the hem and turned to looked over his shoulder. Isabel was about a yard away, but was gaining on him fairly quickly, hair whipping behind her even faster that her legs were moving. He paused and raised an eyebrow, unsure of whether or not he'd actually heard his name. Then she spoke again:

"Ed, hey! We haven't walked to school together for, like, a week!"

He blinked as she finally came to jog in place at his side, lips squeezing into a thin, confused line. "Uh, yeah. I guess we haven't?"

She smiled and grabbed his wrist, tugging him along with her as she continued what must have been an impromptu morning run. "Well, c'mon! If we keep standing around, we're gonna be late, you dork!"

His feet were moving before the gears in his head could even begin to, and he was running by her side, wrist-to-hand, again for the first time in- a month? "Okay?"

* * *

It was rare that Richard Spender took a day off from teaching history. It was, after all, arguably the most important class a person could teach, but the immediate future was in dire need of his attention at the moment, and he intended to answer.

He pulled up to the dojo at around 8 o'clock after passing Isabel and Ed on their way to school. Good, he'd thought to himself- they'd been worrying him. Guerra was there to greet him at the door, nodding as he stepped out of his car and shut the door behind him.

It took Hashimoto another hour to arrive.

"Have we found anything new regarding the escaped monster?"

"I'm afraid not." Spender frowned and straightened his posture. He was regretful he'd made no progress, and not confident he ever would, but letting them know that would be a huge mistake. He'd jumped through those hoops enough times to know better. "But there hasn't been another attack as of yet, so perhaps it was a fluke?"

"Unlikely." Guerra leaned over his crossed legs, resting his chin in one hand. "Regardless of the possibility of an assisted escape, if one found a breach on its own, others are likely to follow suit."

"Then maybe it's time we tell BL?"

"I stand by what I said before," Hashimoto glided to stand by Guerra, arms tucked casually within his robe, and still he looked rigid. "She will want to send us to war. We are not ready."

"We don't know that." There were times Guerra disagreed with Hashimoto for the sake of disagreement, and for a moment that was how Spender read the situation, but Guerra was baring his upper teeth, and that always meant he was inching on losing his temper. "You seem to forget that she leads us for a reason."

"And you seem to forget her carelessness. She is good in nature, but she is also human" Hashimoto gestured to the kitchen where Guerra's students lounged around, choking down carbs after an extended training session. "She is a human who forgets what this was like!"

Guerra snarled. "You still hide behind your high horse? Is it your students you truly worry for, or your reputation as a master?"

"If anyone is blinded by their pride, it is you, Guerra. Are you so desperate to show off what your pupils can do that you would sacrifice their safety? Their lives?"

Spender kept his groaning to himself, suddenly thankful they couldn't see his eyes roll behind his glasses. As practiced and disciplined as both men were, all civility seemed to fall to dust when they were alone together. Old rivalries were, well, part of life, but he appeared to be the only one who remembered the greater stakes involved.

"Master Guerra, Master Hashimoto, if I could speak my piece?" They both turned to him, looking annoyed; he guessed the irritation was only in part the fault of their arguing. Spender straightened his tie and cleared his throat, suddenly feeling awfully hot in the air-conditioned dojo. "While I'm still opposed to withholding information from BL, I do agree that it's too soon to tell if this was a fluke. There hasn't been another attack in a week, and while the possibility of another monster isn't off the table, it is unlikely." Middle ground, that was the foundation of every settlement, and no one knew that better than a seventh grade history teacher. "That said, I believe we should prepare our students to handle themselves in case of another attack. However," he looked to Master Hashimoto, who seemed unshaken by the sudden focus. "If there is another attack, then we must inform BL. Once is bad luck- twice is a threat."

Master Guerra and Hashimoto exchanged glances, eyeing each other down as though they were opponents again, rivals even. Silence fell, and he watched with a knot in his throat as the two battled it out in stillness. He didn't move, save for the twitch of his fingers at his sides. Stepping between the two then would have been not only a death wish, but a gruesome one at that. Guerra sighed, as did Hashimoto.

"That is reasonable."

"I suppose so…"

* * *

Max had rolled out of bed not even fifteen minutes ago when Isabel showed up, almost obnoxiously early, in the corner store, dragging a very befuddled-looking Ed behind her. He thought he could move his usual pace if he just pretended he hadn't seen them coming up the hill from his bedroom window, but only seconds after the greeting chime of the sliding doors rang, Isabel's voice echoed up the staircase. "MAXWELL PUCKETT. I KNOW YOU'RE AWAKE. GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE." And thus began his descent into morning madness- brushing his teeth while simultaneously slipping his pants on, swallowing an untoasted Pop Tart while brushing his hair, grabbing his backpack with his foot while his hands both reached for his tool...

"Morning, Max!"

He came down the stairs in a huff, readjusting his sideways-turned baseball cap with enough of a glare to send a clear, unamused message.

"Uh… you too?" He glanced at Ed, who furrowed his brows and shrugged behind Isabel's back. Max squinted. "Hey, Ed."

"Hey…"

"He woke up on time this morning!" Isabel nodded in Ed's direction, then looked back at him and winced. "Well, actually, maybe I woke up a little later than usual."

"Isabel, you woke up on time. I've been getting up early-?" _Isabel? Not Izzy?_

"Either way, he's here now!" She glanced around, hands at her hips, and the smile she'd been wearing as wide as every aisle in the corner store combined seemed to falter so that it was just the size of one. "Where's Isaac?"

Max rolled his eyes. "How should I know?"

"Well, you guys walked to school together Friday? I thought maybe you'd, I don't know? Talked it out or something?"

"We didn't." As much as Isaac insisted he was over it, common sense told him otherwise, if Isaac's creepy smile and menacing looks had been any indication. If he was going to be that way, then there was no use even trying. He'd started it- if anybody apologized first, it was going to be Isaac. _If._ "Why?"

"I don't know." Isabel shifted onto her other leg, lips thinning. "I guess I'm just worried about him, is all. That fight you two had was pretty big. I mean, I'm used to Isaac being… testy… but I've never seen him swing at anyone before. And now he's not even showing up to club ninety percent of the time? I don't know" she shrugged. "It's just not like him."

Ed tilted his head to one side. "I wonder what he's even doing?"

* * *

He supposed he should have expected Suzy to take him seriously, because he was actually being serious, but he hadn't known that she'd go all out and hold a recorder up to his face. He sat across from her at the clubroom's table, licking his dry lips as she watched him with a look that reminded him just how cold the reality of the situation was…

… what he was about to do…

Collin sat between the two of them on the longer side of the table, notebook open to jot down the important bits of his story, and Isaac vaguely wondered if he could even keep up. Suzy flicked the switch, and the recorder sprang to life. "You can start when you're ready."

Isaac breathed in.

He could do this. _He could do this._

Suzy believed him. Collin believed him, somewhat. Dimitri's threats didn't matter, and they never did. It didn't matter what everybody else would think, and it didn't matter what the club would think. Nothing and no one mattered; he was alone, anyway.

Isaac breathed out.

"I am of sound mind and body, and anything I say may be used at Suzy's own discretion." He squinted his eyes open and looked at her, the proud, loud, ambitious journalist who'd been reduced to a shivering child, eyes wide with lips tucked between chattering teeth. Collin was more still, but Isaac could see his writing hand trembling above the paper. He wondered for a moment if it was fair that he do what he was about to do to them, put on them what they couldn't even understand because they couldn't see it like he could. What he was about to do would change their lives, and his own, and the lives of everyone in Mayview. He flinched and clenched his fists. "My journey into the spectral world began like this…"

* * *

Collin looked horrified. If he'd been shaking before, he was trembling then, hand so unsteady Isaac thought the pencil- which he'd broken five times- might fly from his hands. He felt bad scaring the poor kid so much; he didn't really deserve to be swept up in… everything.

The true guilt came in the form of a frozen Suzy, who sat so still and quiet and distant that one might have thought she was just tired- but the fingers set on the recorder were fluttering off and on the device. Her eyes were wide and read of a horror even deeper than Collin's, unsettling because it reflected the guilt Isaac was pushing down under the waves of every other emotion he was feeling. He set his hands at his legs, balling them to tightened fists.

"... And that's about it. We're all up to date."

He went to stand and Suzy jumped up, leaning so far into the table he worried the edge would cut off circulation in her abdomen. "Names." He blinked as she shoved the recorder closer to his face. "I need names."

"Oh, right."

He set back down, both hands now clutching at his knees. Suzy stayed standing, but the recorder in her hand followed him back down. He licked his lips again.

"Richard Spender."

Of course he was the first. He was the man who'd committed the most crimes against him, the one who put him in senseless danger all the time with no explanation or sign of remorse. Suzy and Collin exchanged glances. They probably hadn't anticipated a teacher being involved, at least not a relatively normal one.

"Isabel Guerra."

She'd been Spender's second-in-command, not to mention his lead tormentor for the two years he'd been a spectral. She'd been his first hope when Spender started keeping secrets and his first taste of true, intentional abandonment. He'd dropped her name as easily as he mentioned what he'd had for breakfast. Suzy's hand tightened around the device, and he could tell what she was thinking: _I knew she was up to something!_

"Edward Burger."

Ed was a pacifist at heart, but he'd done his fair share of taunting Isaac. He was no better than Isabel, following her around, ignoring him, leaving him out, calling him a nerd…!

"Dimitri Danger."

Suzy and Collin audibly gasped, though Isaac wasn't sure they caught that on recording. He winced at them and shrugged- an apology of sorts, he supposed. That wasn't quite the way he'd ever hoped they'd find out. Collin dropped his pencil, and Suzy went pale from the head down. Even her lips looked icy compared to their usual bubblegum pink. He told himself that Dimitri was at fault there, that he knew Isaac was going to tell them the truth and he hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell them himself. He was a coward. He deserved it just like the rest of them.

Isaac bit down on his lips, mulling over the next name. It was the one that hit his tongue like a roadblock where the others rolled off, the one that caused him the absolute worst pain to say. Part of him still wanted the fairy tale, the story where he was alone and lost and sad; he still wanted the part where somebody saved him. Every inch of him wanted somebody to cling to, just that one person, the one who understood even if they jeered, the one who was honest and true, true like Isaac, where everyone else wasn't. If he said that name, there was no going back, no chance that the story would ever, ever unravel like that.

But then again, would it ever? Was there ever a chance that it might have? He guessed some part of him must have known, right from the start, that there would be no saving grace. He knew all along that he was getting his hopes up, and that he'd inevitably see them come crashing down in the fueled fire that was his luck and his life. The cycle repeated over and over again, after all. The reason he could say Isabel Guerra or Richard Spender so easily, so simply, was because they'd let him down, over and over and over again. The most recent letdown, well, it was just the worst one. All that time he'd spent thinking that, if somebody new would just sweep into town, then they'd see his side, and they'd like him, and they'd be honest with him. That last bit of hope he had, the last leg Isaac had to stand on, was knocked out from under him in almost record time with so much aggression he lost the limb entirely. It was the quickest the universe had ever backhanded him. If the objective kid couldn't see his side, wouldn't take his side, then nobody would.

There was no fairy tale. He had no friend. He was alone, and he'd stay alone.

If he'd be ostracized regardless, he might as well deserve it.

"Maxwell Puckett."

He nodded to let Suzy know he was finished, and she clicked the recorder off.

"Thank you." Isaac stood again, pushing his hands- his shaking, numb hands- against the table to support himself on the way up. He'd really done that. He just sold out the club- the spectral world, even. There was no going back from that, no taking it all back or calling it all off anymore. It was too late. What was done was done and the whole school, and inevitably the world, would know that spectrals exist, and that spirits and ghosts were real and they weren't always friendly and he was at the center of it all. He was the one who'd gone and kicked that bucket. "No, seriously," a gentle hand set atop his own, and Isaac jumped in his skin, looking up to meet Suzy's soft eyes. He could still feel her hand trembling, if that wasn't his hand, but she looked at him the way he imagined a woman he'd rescued from a burning fire would look at him, had that look in her eye that expressed things Suzy herself might not have been able to voice. "Isaac, thank you."

He blinked, and despite all of the anxiety that'd rushed over him in the last few moments, he found himself smiling.

* * *

Suzy took one last look at the papers Collin had scratched together and the recorder she'd held in hands that still weren't quite working the way she wanted them to. She was on autopilot, too in her head to process it all, and too stuck in reality to put distance between what needed to be done and the overwhelming, lung-choking fear that had fallen over her. She slipped them both into the drawer.

Collin plopped down into the rolling chair in front of the computer, looking unusually pale- and she'd seen him pale before, it was his near constant state when he was with her. He was trying to hide it, though, just like she was, one hand to his forehead, eyes set on the floor, wide and clouded with so much emotion she couldn't bare to look at him. His eyes reflected what she was feeling, and she couldn't let it hit her in full.

"Suzy?"

"Yeah?" She reached in and pulled out the first folder she'd made for the story, when Isaac burst through the doors claiming to have a story she couldn't refuse. It'd been a little hard to grasp all that time leading up to today, to the meat of the story. She tipped the folder open and pulled out the headline picture, the one she still couldn't believe she hadn't doctored. Isaac was facing the camera dead on, with eyes she still couldn't read, even with her trained set. He held one hand out, but the interesting part was the small tornado rising from that upturned palm.

"What have we gotten ourselves into this time?"

She remembered how the air in the room had changed, how it seemed every breath added to the unbridled hurricane Isaac summoned from thin air. She remembered falling back against the desk, speechless, hearing Collin screaming to himself and pointing avidly at the break of nature in the middle of their clubroom. And in all that time, Isaac stood still as stock, unfazed by the sheer power in the literal palms of his hands- he'd had that for a while, she guessed.

Suzy paused and looked at Collin, who still wasn't looking at her, and honestly? She was fine with that. She glanced back to the photo. "I really don't know."


	10. Chapter 10

He closed his locker and zipped up his bag, just like he did every day. When he walked down the crowded hall with shoulders brushing and bumping into his every other moment, and when he took the first steps down the stairs that lead to the first floor, it all felt normal. Like every day after school, he was taking his usual route with the usual weight of his textbooks, and it was all so very _usual_.

But Isaac's body was tingling, shivering, twitching with anxiety. Every person he passed seemed to be watching him, judging him, and guilt was slowly clawing across his strangled chest, twisting his stomach into such a tight knot that he nearly keeled over. He never wanted to hurt them, or anybody, anybody but the club. He told himself it was fair; they'd been killing him slowly for two years, twisting and digging an already-wedged knife even deeper into him when all he wanted was to make it all up to them. He'd tried. After Dimitri left the club, he'd tried. After Spender started keeping secrets, he tried. Then Isabel stopped talking, and Ed stopped talking, and week after week his patience seemed to snuff out, little by little. They still made fun of him, and he still remembered realizing, by chance, that maybe it'd never been friendly, that maybe they made fun of him because they didn't care about him, not because they were bonding or something, in hindsight, stupid as that. He got weaker, and weaker, and he got hopeless, and pathetic, leaching onto something that would never be.

Then Max happened.

Max took the knife out of his chest, and just as he thought it was gone for good, Max dug it right into his heart.

He didn't care; he never did. Just like the rest of them. Isaac wasn't even important enough to be hated, wasn't worth the thought and energy. They had other things to worry about, things they wouldn't tell him because he didn't matter and he was nothing but the team mascot they'd abuse each and every day, toying with his emotions the way masters lined up their puppets. So he hated them for all they were worth, hated himself, too. It disgusted him that they had so much tug at his strings, that they could burn each thread down without so much as a glance and not even watch his ashes hit the ground. He knew they'd never forgive him, let alone like him- and he didn't even want that anymore. He just wanted them to care.

And if he had to make them hate him as much as he hated them to get there, he'd do that.

* * *

She'd been tossed and kicked and bent, and there wasn't any sign she'd get better. She was sure her grandfather saw it- sure her opponent saw it. Isabel winced and got on her knees, pressing the palms of her hands against the wet grass. Her legs were bruised from just above the calves and down, though she was sure a spectral shot had hit her right in the thigh- and her side- earlier. She didn't know what was wrong with her. This wasn't a student that had ever given her trouble before. When her grandfather called him up to the field, she'd been sure he wanted her to teach the slacker a few things, but it looked like the tables had turned. It was either the loser had finally started brushing up on his punches, or…

She turned her head over her shoulder, eyes searching the sidelines. Master Guerra sat at his typical spot, arms crossed, looking gruff as ever- she wasn't doing well, she knew that. Other students sat around with water bottles in their hands and towels around their necks, wiping beads of sweat from their red foreheads. Others met her eyes when they landed on them. Ed sat among the crowd with hardly a drop of sweat at his brow, and he was also watching her.

Usually he'd be cheering her on so obnoxiously loud that her grandpa would have to shut him up.

He just sat there, watching her. No expression. No glee, no disinterest, nothing.

Isabel reached up and wiped the wetness from the corner of her lip, twisting back around just as the student came closer with one extended hand. Was he going to help her up? Punt her in the stomach with his aura? "Bad move, buddy." She curled her fist and threw it right into the side of his face, sending him into the ground, rolling a few inches away. She took the opportunity to kneel on one leg, baring her teeth. The student gasped and pushed their body off the ground and she dove forward, pulling back her other fist before throwing it forward. The other student dodged it, and they began dancing back and forth like that- Isabel throwing punches, the student just narrowly dodging them.

"You are not concentrated, Isabel. You will focus."

"I'm trying!"

She took another glance at Ed, who seemed just as withdrawn as he had before. He'd just taken to wiping his mouth with a towel hanging from another student's shoulders. It took only that moment for the other student to dig their heel into the ground, raising both arms tight to each other to block the next hit Isabel went for. She blinked, and he reached around to grab her extended arm by the elbow, twisting the skin enough to feel like it was burning. She yelped, and they docked their heel in the ground with a small hole, twisting their body around so that she followed.

They went around and around in circles, spinning so furiously and so quickly that Isabel's breath didn't just leave her- her footing did, too. She was weightless, couldn't even manage a scream, though she was trying. Her legs swung through the air as the other student twisted them both around. Then he started to let her go. Isabel choked on nothing and tried to press her hand against the force of the wind, inching closer and closer to his arm where she could latch on. It felt like the whole world was pressing against her, so thick and invisible she couldn't fight against the currents.

Slowly, though she was squinting through dry eyes, her fingertips brushed against his wrist where he held her. He grunted and let her slip through his fingers, releasing her to the mercy of the wind. It felt, then, like the wind was knocked right out of her, equal to any punch she'd ever received in the gut. She went flying across the yard, too fast to do anything about it, too slow to know anything but the instinctual fear.

Her feet hit the ground first, tips of her toes brushing against dirt and wet grass. Then her body started to fall backwards, and with an outstretched arm, she watched as the world around her ran in circles again. She went tumbling, rolling in a ball until she'd gone as far as the other student could throw her, back hitting the ground before her legs did. Isabel gasped and arched her back, twisting around so that she could sit up on her elbows. Strands of her hair fell into her face, twigs and dirt like dandruff on her head. She coughed and bent her head below her shoulders, clenching her fists.

"You aren't even trying, Isabel." Her eye twitched at Master Guerra's voice. "Why will you not focus? What else is so important?" She pushed herself higher, sitting up on her calves. "Fight again, and this time, concentrate."

"I can't!"

Isabel pressed onto both feet, spinning on her heel, speeding as fast as her walk could carry her to the front door of the dojo, one hand to her face, the other balled in a fist at her side.

Master Guerra followed her with his eyes, sneering to himself and stroking his beard. "What a distracted child… she will get over that should she be a prodigy."

Ed's eyes followed Isabel all the way to the door, brows furrowing. His hands tangled, fingers intermingling.

He wanted to reach out to her; he wanted to grab her hand.

* * *

"Concentrate?" Isabel slammed the door to her room hard enough that the walls shook around her. "How am I supposed to concentrate when he's leaving me here?" One hand reached out and gripped the lamp at her beside. Her fingers clenched around it, and she tossed it as far and as hard as she could into the wall. It shattered on impact. "First Eightfold," Isabel kicked a stack of textbooks, both schoolwork and spectral work. Papers went flying through the air, falling around her like slow, soft confetti. She sneered at it all. "Now Ed, it's all my fault, and I'm supposed to concentrate!" She was supposed to remind him that she's cool- that he thinks she's cool- and what did she do? Fecked it all up! "What am I even doing? Nothing! Showing off isn't gonna make him stay, Isabel, you idiot! He's your friend, not some sparkle-eyed groupie! Ugh! How dumb can I even be?" There had to be a way to get him to change his mind, something that would remind him that she was his best friend, that she needed him- _darn it, she couldn't lose him, too_! Not so soon after Eightfold! She'd let one friend down already, lost them because she made a choice- not the wrong choice, but not a great one- and the same stupid thing was about to chase Ed away too, and it was all just her fault! How was she supposed to fix it? Could she even?

Isabel huffed, breaths in and out as she stood in her destroyed bedroom. Whatever books she'd had laid around were all over, had even knocked over some posters that'd been hanging on the wall. Her bedsheets were thrown to the other side of the room, pillows and their feathers falling in the air, gracing her head on the way down, blowing away as she exhaled. Her fists unclenched, and she frowned.

No, she would fix it- she had to.

* * *

His dad had been fiddling with his tie for the last twenty minutes, but he insisted he do it himself, so Max let him. The old guy was smiling from ear to ear, nose wrinkling in sheer anticipation of what was to come on his Tuesday night. After all, third date? His dad might be getting home late that night… the thought made him sick, but Max put on a fake grin anyway. His dad could never tell the difference. He loved his kids and all, yeah, but the guy was practically a dumb teenager in an adult's body; reading people wasn't something he was exactly high in skill on, even in regards to his own kids. _He could always tell with Mom though…_

"Finally! Got it! How do I look, Max?"

He blinked back to life, eyeing his father in the suit he'd worn all of three times- his sister's wedding, Easter, and then one embarrassing time to a casual neighborhood cookout- and finding, with mild contempt, that he actually looked pretty good. Max nodded and forced his smile to be wider, like that made it look more genuine or something. He knew it didn't, but he also knew his dad wouldn't notice. "You look great, Dad!"

"Even the tie?"

"Even the tie."

His dad laughed, and the smile he'd had twitched downwards for the smallest of moments as he reached up to tug at it around his throat, lightly tugging when the knot sat. "I haven't tied one in years, I suppose. Your mother always helped me with it…" The room fell silent with the drop of Max's mood, sullen and somber, reminiscent of a time years passed. His dad winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "I like to think she's cheering for me, wherever she is."

Max stayed quiet.

Moments passed in hours, or they felt like hours, honestly Max couldn't much tell anymore. Time had become a bit of the odd concept when he focused on it too long. Five years seemed like five years sometimes, the times where he wasn't actually really thinking about it, the times where the date crossed his mind but he'd be busy doing something else, like fighting Grudges or struggling to remember who signed the Declaration of Independence. Then other times, times like these, five years seemed like five minutes ago. Five minutes was too soon, he felt, to be talking about another woman, too soon for it to feel like moving on and not "cheating". He pushed the guilt in his chest down, though it came at him from two sides- the part of him that knew he should support his dad, and the irrational part of him that felt like a traitor, pushing his dad into a stranger's arms because she apparently "had blue hair" and "smiled like the ocean". Yeah? Well his mom had caramel eyes and a voice like the warmest bells in spring, with cinnamon and fire and chestnut.

"Anyway," his dad started for the stairs, waving to Max on his way over "I'll text you when I'm on my way home! It's a school night, so I promise it won't be too late."

"Yeah, yeah…" He might have sounded more flippant than he'd planned, so he covered it up with a low chuckle and waved back. "Have a- a good time!"

His dad smiled again, and giggled like a child before sliding down the staircase railing.

* * *

 _Wednesday_

"You can't run this story, Suzy."

"And? Who says I can't?"

Dimitri growled through his teeth and ran a hand through his hair. Suzy watched him the way he figured she would when Isaac told her- if Isaac told her. She took a step back when he took a step forward, and kept her eyes on him even when Collin was saying something.

Collin, who wasn't much better, standing on the very opposite side of the room from the two of them, hands in his pockets, legs twisted to run whenever the situation might call. But Dimitri would never hurt them, and it bugged him more than he would have liked to logically admit that they seemed scared of him. Seemed? No, they were. Horrified. "Please, Suzy, listen to me here. If you release that story, there's a lot that's gonna happen and none of it's gonna be good."

"Except that people will finally know the truth."

"You've gotta trust me here!"

Suzy practically spit at him. "Oh yeah? Like you trusted me?"

Dimitri blinked, lips parting to say words he couldn't even fit together. She watched him, unmoving, hands clutching the folders and pictures to her chest; the editor in him, the part of him that didn't exist until Suzy took him into the journalism club, until she got her hands on him and changed him because that's honestly what Suzy did best- he wanted to tell her that she'd crease the pages; it would all be harder to scan. He shook the thought and fixed her with a glare, taking a step forward. "Suzy-!" He reached one hand toward her, aiming to set it at her shoulder, maybe set her terrified self at ease.

But another hand gripped his wrist and tugged it to the side, and when Dimitri looked, he found Collin standing there, an unreadably cool look on his face for somebody who knew Dimitri could slice him in half. His lips thinned, and he forced himself to not pull out of his hold. He turned his attention back to Suzy, who'd been glancing at Collin with startled eyes when he started again. "Suzy, you have to trust me. You have no idea what you're doing!"

"Bite me, broski. You've been one of them from the beginning, haven't you?"

"What?"

"A spe- specter…" Suzy hummed and bit her lips. "Whatever you guys are called! You're one of them, and you knew I was on the Activity Club's trail, so you joined the Journalism Club to throw me off!" Her voice cracked, and he could see her eyes turning red behind the fire she used as a shield. He went to say something, and she cut him off. "You never wanted to be here! You were- you were a double agent! You were just trying to protect the people you actually care about!"

"Suzy, I-!"

"Well what about us, huh?" She slapped one hand to her chest. Cheeks brushing red as frustration and betrayal and _pain_ took over, and she spat each word. "Don't you care about us at all? We were supposed to be a team, you jerk! And all this time you've just been hanging around for their sake? Protecting them?"

He could feel Collin's hold slackening around his wrist, fingers parting slowly until the whole hand fell. "Suzy." Collin's voice fell on deaf ears. Dimitri would have tried, but they'd both learned long ago that there was no quelling Suzy. She was fierce in every meaning. When she felt, she felt with the same passion and ambition in which she worked, and right then she must have been feeling perfectly dismal.

"Well, you failed." When she spoke next, she spoke with finality and clarity, though he could hear the wet salt piling up. "So you can go report back to your little psychic friends and let them know you can join their little cult again, because there's no reason for you to come around here anymore!"

He hadn't known heartbreak for a long time, if he'd ever. It was something he only heard about in overly dramatic novels when they read tragedies in English, or soap operas his mom would pop on the TV sometimes with a fresh pint of ice cream. It was a deep, scarring feeling, he'd gathered, something so profoundly painful that it could lead someone to do their worst- murder, suicide, cheating- the works. It had the power to start wars and the power to win or lose them. Dimitri wasn't sure he'd ever really known heartbreak, but he was sure he felt something like it right then.

He gaped like a brainless fish at Suzy, who'd twisted away, rubbing furiously at her eyes. She couldn't have been serious, right? He turned to look at Collin, who'd been watching Suzy with such empathy he almost thought he was sharing in the bulk of her pain. He looked at Dimitri when he felt his eyes on him, frowning sympathetically compared to the rage that'd been in their fearless leader.

"I think you should go."

Dimitri looked from Collin to Suzy, back and forth until his mind could completely process that this was really happening. Each second had his heart splitting in two, cracking open and spewing a mouthful of emotions he didn't think he'd ever find it in himself to feel. Yet there they were, cold, hot, stinging, unconceivable panic and regretful acceptance bursting forth from his chest and rising like acid in his stomach. Something was rising in his throat, but he choked it down because it wasn't a scream or a speech, or a plan- it was unfamiliar, and it was taking him over the way no other emotion had taken him before.

He twisted on his heel and sped through the clubroom door, falling into step with the rest of the student body, filtering through the front doors on their way home.

Collin watched after him, clenching and unclenching that hand that'd been wrapped around Dimitri's wrist. He wasn't sure what he'd been doing, or even why. He guessed he was done seeing Suzy put herself in danger, not that Dimitri was actually a threat, necessarily; there'd been a chance, but most of him wanted to believe Dimitri was secretive- not a psychopath. It was odd that his mind had pressed him to step between her and danger that time, as opposed to trying to keep Suzy away from any danger at all. But he'd found himself leaping in front of her; he'd known, somewhere, he hoped, that Dimitri wasn't going to hurt her, but some part of him wasn't sure, and that part of him had full control for just that moment.

He turned to look at Suzy, who'd stopped wiping her eyes, though he could still hear her sniffling.

"It was a good idea, not telling him." Collin stuffed his hands in his pockets, and Suzy stood a little straighter. "He was torn up enough about you publishing it in the school paper. If he knew you were…"

"Yeah." Her voice still shook. He could hear it even in just that word. He could see the unspoken comment in the air. _I think he might've really tried to kill me, then._

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Well, what are we waiting for? We have two-hundred dozen papers to print."

She glanced at him over her shoulder, scrunching her red nose, brows furrowed, eyes curious. He smiled and shrugged, turning away to gather the printing paper. Suzy blinked and gave her eyes one last good wipe back and forth, her smile growing little by little before she beamed at him from behind her sleeve. "Let's get to work, then, lazy-bum!"


	11. Chapter 11

While the meditating bit had gotten, uh, easier, it still wasn't his… forte.

He'd fallen three different times trying to do yoga on one of the wooden slabs Master Hashimoto had directed him to. Why, oh why, did a "tree" pose have to be so, so difficult? It's a tree! It literally just sits there, being a tree! Ed huffed and tried once again to balance on one leg. He got as far as stretching his arms above his head before he felt his leg giving way to the front. Ed yelped on the way down, falling face first into the carpeted floor of the dojo.

 _Yeah, real manly, Ed. I'm sure Isabel would have loved to see that._

Though, as of late, she didn't seem to be mad at him anymore, or was at least trying to hide it. She'd been acting funny since Tuesday morning, what with walking him to and from school- like they used to- asking him where he was going when he left for training (he lied and told her he was going to the library to meet with a tutor and study… which she clearly hadn't bought), even being right at the door when he came home with a bag of chips in one hand and a random video game in the other. It was almost too nice of her, like she was trying really, really hard to get him to say something. Maybe she was just mad he was lying to her? But she hadn't cared the first entire week! What could have possibly changed? Did she suddenly decide to forgive him? Was she using reverse psychology on him in the hopes that she'd suffocate him with her presence so much that he'd never wanna be around her again? And if that was the case, that meant she wanted him gone and she never wanted to be his friend again!

What. Was. Happening?

Ed grabbed at his head and rolled around on the floor.

Did she hate him, now? Did she love him again? Had Max been a disappointing New Best Friend? Or was he too good? Was she bad? No! Isabel was never bad! She was amazing in every way! Max would have been lucky to have her as a best friend! What was he even thinking? Maybe it was all in his head? Maybe Isabel was never brushing him off at all? Maybe she wasn't being friendly to him! Maybe he'd wanted her to be his friend again so badly that he'd started hallucinating?

"Ah! Enough! I have training to do!"

He slapped his cheeks and turned around, climbing back up onto the wooden slab until he was standing with both feet atop it. "Come on, come on! I can do it this time!" All of the other students had gone on break after meditation, leaving him the last standing pupil hanging, er, flopping, around. Concentration should have been easy! And yet; Ed nearly slipped forward again and yelped, catching himself by placing one heel right at the edge of the wood to balance himself.

"Is there something bothering you, Ed?"

He turned to see Master Hashimoto, sliding out the doors that lead to what Ed had deemed the "Tea Room", the only place in the dojo aside from the kitchen and dining room he let anybody drink anything, and it was almost always tea. His voice read friendly, but the narrow of his eyes and the sharpness of his shoulders spoke contrarily. He was a more patient man than Master Guerra, but somehow that only made disappointing him feel worse. He glided over to the slab and stood before Ed with a frown creeping at the corners under his beard and mustache. "Oh, hi Master Hashimoto. No, nothing's bothering me."

"Then why can you not balance?"

Ed shrunk and turned his head away, a nervous chuckle bubbling in his throat. "Oh, uh, honestly it's just that I've been doing it for so long. It gets harder over time, you know?"

"Then why did you not do it right the first time?"

The room feel silent, and Ed's shoulders slumped; he'd never been the best liar. He sighed and glanced to the floor. He was so, so stupid. All this time he'd been pushing himself to get better for Isabel, but the very thing that drove him was the thing messing him up again, and again, and again. How was he supposed to become a man for her when she kept confusing him? He was supposed to know her better than anyone else, and there he was wondering why she started talking to him again! Ed bit at the inside of his cheek; he really had been a horrible best friend, if even now he couldn't figure her out.

"You are letting your worries cloud your mind." Ed blinked, and looked towards Master Hashimoto, who hadn't taken his eyes off him for a moment. "The only emotion you need to feel in battle is drive, Edward- the drive to protect those you care about." He raised one hand and set it at Ed's shoulder, squeezing lightly. The touch was familiar, something, it occurred to Ed, Spender would have done. Master Hashimoto smiled at him, mustache rising at the corners, fluffing outwards. "Your love for her will make you stronger. Focus on that."

Ed nodded, and his sensei pulled away, folding his hands back into the sleeves of his robe.

Ed straightened up, bringing one wobbling foot to set upon the inside of his other leg, then began to raise his arms above his head. _I remember meeting her the first time, how she smiled at me and called me "Newbie"; I already thought she was so cool, even back then. And I remember the first time we sparred! She tackled me so fast that we went rolling down the hill and Mister Spender had to chase after us!_ Memory after memory floated to the front of his mind- her smile, her laugh, her bloodthirst, her spirit- it all flashed by, one shared memory after another. _I remember staying up late with her on our seventh Halloween together! She ate so much candy corn that she puked out the window and hit one of the students- the old man wouldn't let it go for, like, the rest of the year! I remember starting sixth grade, and getting so lost that she and I had to go back to the dojo and ask for a ride to school because we had no idea where it was. I remember the first time she won a match against an older student, and how happy she was, but mostly I remember her hugging me so tightly I couldn't feel my lower arms, or my hands, or my lungs- much of anything, really._

He stretched his arms and let his hands join at the top of his head, straightening his back to get the most out of the pose. Shutting his eyes, he smiled, knowing he was balancing perfectly.

* * *

He was tired, and beaten (if the bruises along his arms was any indication). Master Hashimoto was a pacifist, but his students were most assuredly not. Ed yawned and stretched his back out, hands at his waist as he leaned back. His backpack swung at his shoulders, but he ignored the weight against his sore body. There were other parts that hurt way worse.

He twitched at the memory of a younger student kicking right at his crotch area, and hunched forward as he walked.

After meditating, correctly, for two hours, he'd sparred for another three, and it was high time to get home and pass out until he'd wake up, go to school, and do it all over again. He grunted. At least his body was getting used it, he supposed.

Something passed by so fast he'd hardly noticed it, but he felt the slightest brush of something sticky and slimy against the back of his backpack. Ed halted and twisted around, eyes wide. "Hey! Stop that! I'm a spectral, you know! You can't scare me!" In hindsight, that might have been a bad thing to yell had it been a normal person playing a prank on him, but he had a feeling it was a mischievous spirit looking for trouble. _Well, they've certainly found it…_ He glanced around, raising his hands in fists up to the front of his face.

When nothing jumped from the bushes, he let his fists fall, sneer falling to simply thin lips. "Huh, guess it was nothing." Ed turned around, shrugging his backpack further onto his shoulders, headed again in the direction of home.

"Maybe it was just a bird that flew too low or-" Something hot and slimy wrapped around his hand, and before he could register what it was, sharp pain filtered through his arm, all the way up to his elbow. He screamed and formed a larger fist with his spectral energy, slamming it down upon the mystery enemy with as much force as he could muster through his pain. "Get- eck, get off of me!" Two punches had it's latch on him fading. It yelped and fell back. Following it home, Ed could see it wasn't just a small, sharp-toothed animal that'd nipped him.

It was a tentacle with canines wider than the length of his shoulders, shrinking back to a monster much larger than five Ed's stacked together. Its body was but a clump of rotting human flesh, melting into its own chattering human teeth. It had no eyes for sight, but its nostrils sat wide and sniffing where its pupils should have been. It screamed, and all that came out was the horrified shrieks of a man in pain Ed had never known. He gulped. "A monster?" It slinked towards him, body sliding and leaving a trail of blood like a snail left slime, pausing every few moments to scream again. Ed took a step back for each inch it moved, fists once balled trembling at his sides. It continued to advance of him, and suddenly he could see there was more than one sharp-toothed tentacle rising in the air around the monster before him. Ed felt a shiver down his spine.

* * *

She'd heard the commotion before she saw it. Isabel had been in Ed's room, deciding whether or not he'd probably wanna play Pak Nam or the newer Final SciFi 10. She shrugged and figured that she'd just let him decide whenever he got home. Besides, she still had to prepare the popcorn and soda- preferably in taller cups with less aforementioned soda to avoid as much spillage as the night before. She snorted to herself as she set the games beside the TV. She wasn't sure if her plan was working just yet, seeing as he was still going over to the other side of town to train every night, but she hoped it was. The more time they spent together, the better.

She heard the front door to the dojo open, but there was no usual slam. Curious, but it didn't really matter. Isabel grinned and stood up, racing to the door of Ed's bedroom and throwing it open, eager to greet him from the railings. All that mattered was that he was home, and they could spend two hours, or hopefully more, wasting time on levels they'd beaten millions of times over in millions of different ways- the time Ed beat it with one leg tucked behind his head came to mind. She paid no mind to the hushed whispering she heard from the bottom floor, or the ghostly silence that befell when her voice rang from the second floor. "Ed!" She greeted as soon as she got to the railings, leaning over them so he could see her clearly. "Welcome ba-!" Her words died in her throat.

He stood at the open doors, yes, but he looked a little more than worn out. His glasses were semi-shattered, leaving only one eye covered while the other was squeezed shut, slick with the blood running down from what appeared to be a chunk of skin out of his forehead. Further inspection, and she could see deep bite marks, sharp and wide, all over his body, from his shoulder to his legs, to the holes in his shirt. One leg looked particularly worse for wear, jeans torn so badly that she swore half his calf was gone. Isabel stuttered, body feeling momentarily weightless as she parted her lips, hands clenching the railing so tight she could feel the wood splintering into her palms.

" _ **ED!"**_

Master Guerra had crossed the dojo and hoisted Ed into his arms in moments, cradling him like a small child. "Contact Zarei immediately! We do not have time for you fools to waste! Make the call, now!" Isabel had made it halfway down the stairs by the time the other students had crowded around. "Ed!"

Master Guerra turned over his shoulder, eyes narrowing as she reached the last step before the infirmary. He muttered something to the older students that she couldn't hear, and they turned to face her. Isabel reached one hand out, trying to will her legs to move faster, get to him quicker, see him right then and there! "Ed!" Two arms from different shoulders blocked her path, one resting at her face, the other at her waist. She ran straight into them, smacking her face against muscled skin. She fell back, and another student wrapped their arms around her lungs, pulling her into their chest. It was the ghost, looking down at her with so much empathy that she wanted to scream because there couldn't be a reason to feel that for her- Ed would be fine!

"Let- let me go!" She looked to Master Guerra's retreating back, watching Ed's limbs dangling from his arms as he opened the Infirmary door. "Ed! Ed!"

* * *

"How is he?" Spender crossed his arms and leaned against the walls of the dojo, watching the students train, though with apparent less spirit than usual. They each threw punches and danced the way Guerra had taught them, but each movement was strained, too much force or too little. Matches waged on like that, where nobody really broke a sweat. They moved to and fro, batting at each other like children, eyes somewhere far away from what was going on in front of them. They had a lot on their minds. He took a glance at Guerra from the side; if he'd noticed, he seemed to understand.

"Mina says he will be fine- there was a lot of blood, but little of it was his, and the wounds were less severe than they appeared."

"That's good…"

"I have to say," Guerra stroked his beard and grinned. Had Spender not known him for a decade or so, he might have been unsettled. "I am impressed. The mooch has grown strong, hm?"

Spender nodded, small smile creeping across his lips. "He has. Master Hashimoto seems to be a good fit for him. Ed and Isaac had trouble earlier this month taking a monster together. The fact that he fought one on his own, at his age nonetheless, and managed to kill it- he's finally living up to his potential." Ed had never been the strongest of the club members, and he could have sworn Ed had known. It wasn't a bad thing. Not every soldier could be a warrior and all that. Isabel was the strong arm, Max was the mobility, Isaac was the secret weapon...

Ed was irreplaceable because he was the wildcard. The man that could guess Ed's next move was one with a psychic eye, and he'd become thoroughly convinced it'd been Ed's gift. Upon further inspection, their low-maintenance member very well might have had other talents hidden up his sleeve. Spender smirked. Much like the wildcard he was.

"That weak man must have some good qualities, then." Guerra mumbled. "Though, you realize your proposal…" they both fell silent, and Spender swallowed hard. "Its conditions have been met."

"Yes. I suppose they have."

* * *

"How is he?"

Spender was headed to his car when he heard her, and he paused in turning the keys in the door to look back. She was standing at the top of the hill, frowning down at him and they both knew why. Perhaps she was upset about not being allowed entry to the Infirmary, but he'd seen Ed himself- it wasn't for a child's eyes. It was traumatizing enough that it was, in fact, a child who'd been so severely injured; Isabel didn't need that image in her head. "He's fine, Isabel."

"Then why won't they let me see him?"

"I swear to you, Zarei has him patched up. He just needs to take it easy for a little while."

Isabel faltered, and he could see her wincing, squinting as she was trying to hold back tears. He turned to face her completely, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He didn't need to be home right away. "Isabel, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's-!"

He scowled at her, because he knew her far too well for her to lie to him like that, and she slinked back into herself. Her arms raised to wrap around her shoulders, hair falling into her face, and sighed. "It's just… I already lost Eightfold. I can't" Isabel took a shaky breath. "I can't afford to lose Ed, too, especially if it's my fault."

"You aren't losing him, Isabel. I've already told you." His brows furrowed and he smiled, because there wasn't much else to do. "He's fine. And it isn't your fault that he got attacked-!"

"But it is my fault that he's leaving!" He winced as she balled her fists, grinding her teeth so hard he swore he heard the bones colliding. "He's going to train at some other dojo an hour away, and I'm never going to get to see him, all because I wouldn't just freaking talk to him! Now he thinks I hate him! And yeah, I'm still mad, I'm still really mad! But I need him here! He can't just- he can't just walk out of my life like Eightfold did! I don't wanna grow up without him!" Her voice was cracking, and her cheeks were growing red and puffy from the salt she was harboring too deeply for it to well in her eyes. "He has to stay here! He's my best friend! If he leaves, he'll forget all about me-!"

"Isabel, that's enough."

She hiccuped and looked back at him, fists still clenched, but she'd taken to biting down firmly on either lip. He shook his head and took a few steps up to hill, toward her. "Just because he's leaving the dojo, doesn't mean he's leaving you." She flinched when he reached out to wipe at her cheeks with his thumbs, but didn't move away. She was hot to the touch, and he momentarily thought she might have worried herself sick. She stared up at him as he leaned forward and cupped her head in his hands, the way a brother might have done. "You're right. He is your best friend. That's why distance will only make the heart grow fonder." She smiled at him, and he nodded, his own way of reaffirming his words. Still, her face fell again, eyes falling to his chest rather than his face.

"I still don't want him to go…"

He sighed and pulled her into a hug, rubbing comforting circles into her back as they stood as still as could be, wrapped in emotion.


	12. Chapter 12

"So.. son. Light of my life. My cherished child. My namesake. My-"

"Yeah, could we… cut on that?"

"Oh, right. Sorry." Cough cough. "What did you want to talk about?"

Max hummed and chewed on his bottom lip, twiddling his thumbs and looking anywhere but right in front of him. "I wanted to talk about…"

"Yes?"

"I wanted… to talk about…" He sighed. "I wanted to talk about… mom? And you dating again?"

"Yes, mine loinfruit?"

"Stop that. Look, I just wanted to talk about mom."

"Swell woman she was, love of my life. Bearer of my children! My sweet, sensual temptress-!"

"Yeah. Uh, I just wanted to say that, um, maybe…" Max tugged at the collar of his shirt, clearing his throat. "Maybe it's too… early? Yeah, maybe it's too early to be dating other women, ya know? I just think-?" He grunted and ran a hand over his face. "All right, Pj, this isn't working."

Pj sat across from him, blinking behind Lefty, who was posing as his mustache- even if his dad didn't _have_ a mustache. "It's not?"

"No. You're really, really bad at being a father figure," Max paused and blinked into the hand at his forehead. "Which is ironic because my dad is also really, really bad at being a father figure." He squinted at Pj. "Where did you learn the word 'sensual'?"

Pj shrugged. "When your dad fell asleep with the movie station on, another movie came on called-"

"You know what? I just decided I don't wanna know."

There were three quiet knocks at the door, and they both turned their attention as it slid open. Zoe stood on the other side, raising an eyebrow at Max as she took her first steps into the room. "Are you talking to yourself?"

Max snuck a look in Pj's direction, then leaned forward, one elbow resting on his crossed legs. "No. What's up?"

She scrunched her nose and blew air into one of her cheeks, gaze falling to the side as she slipped entirely into his bedroom and shut the door behind her. "I just wanted to ask, since you seem so cool with this and everything." Zoe raised a finger to twist a strand of hair, playing with it, watching it go round and round and round until she couldn't anymore- it'd become too tangled. "How are you okay with Dad moving on? I mean, I really want to be but…" She paused, then tugged at the strand instead. "Every time I think about it, I just get so mad!" He could have sworn she was going to tear a lock of hair straight off her head. Zoe bit down on the inside of her cheek. "So… what's your secret?"

Max frowned and looked at the floor, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. "The truth is," he sighed and turned his eyes in the other direction, looking to his bedroom window instead of Pj, who sat patiently still, watching the conversation that could potentially strengthen his sibling bond with Zoe or, well, not. He sighed. "I'm not okay with it, Zoe. It bothers me- a lot, but if it makes Dad happy, especially after all he's done for us, then I'll just keep my mouth shut about it."

"But," She tilted her head, brows furrowing in uncharacteristic concern. "Won't you hate Dad?"

He blinked and turned to face her. "Huh?"

"If you let your feelings bottle up, and you never tell him, aren't you gonna start to hate Dad for not considering how you're feeling?"

He took a moment to think that over. Logically? That wouldn't have made any sense- he'd told Dad he was fine with it, so it wouldn't really be Dad's fault, right? But Max knew as well as the next guy that emotions didn't always make sense, didn't follow logic the way everything else did- he'd feel what he'd feel, regardless of how he _should_ have been feeling. If he kept lying and brushing it all off, would it really blow up? Would he do something stupid and lose his cool? Keeping his feelings to himself, waiting to see if Dad noticed them on his own- that wouldn't really work, and he knew that. He wanted to spare Dad the grief, but...

The thought of causing more harm than good left a sour taste on his mouth. There was something familiar about the situation he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Max hummed. "You're annoyingly right."

Zoe stuck her tongue out, but he could see the beginnings of a smile, for the first time in two weeks, inching across her pursed lips. He grinned back at her and stood up, subtly waving to Pj, who nodded and faded through the floor. "Let's go play a game together or something. Up for Super Smash Sis?"

* * *

 _Thursday_

"Guys, seriously. I'm fine."

"You have a chunk out the side of your head, dude! You are not fine!"

"See?" Isabel hoisted Ed's arm further into hers, intertwining them so that he couldn't pull away again. "Max is worried, too."

Ed groaned and threw back his head, momentarily making his body slack in their clutches so that they'd have a harder time dragging him to school. They both yelped and tugged at either arm with more force. "I'm fiiine~! I am perfectly capable of walking on my own!"

"You say as" Max grunted and wrenched him further up the hill "you play the limp noodle game. C'mon man, you're gonna hurt yourself. Straighten up."

He sighed and did as asked, adjusting to walk like a normal human being again- well, as normal as he could get with a slight (very slight) limp. Zarei had done a masterful job on him; he'd have to thank her later. He hardly felt a single bite mark, aside from the slight indents where the teeth had sunken in. Isabel told him it was normal, that it'd be regular skin again in another week. He didn't much mind it, of course, he got to walk away with all his limbs and all of his brain, not to mention the sweet satisfactory of winning a fight with what had to have been the most ferocious, terrifying thing he'd ever seen in his life. He would have taken Master Guerra over that monster in a heartbeat had he been given the choice.

"So, what was that thing like?" Max mumbled the question, like he was pondering asking even as the words left his mouth. Ed felt a familiar shiver running down his spine. "I didn't really get a chance to see the other one Mister Spender took down."

"Uh, it was pretty creepy." Creepy was an understatement. He wouldn't get the image of that thing out of his head for at least five years. "Scary, actually. Horrifying. I'm still not sure how I managed to land a hit." He frowned and leaned further into Isabel, who read his shift in weight and squeezed his arm with a small smile. "I guess I just kept my mind on something else… it had, like, twenty pairs of teeth, and the biggest mouth, the one that actually looked like a human's? Its teeth were chattering, all the time, never stopped, except to, uh, scream." The screaming was another thing, even through the fight he'd heard the man's voice echoing in his ears, begging with him, pleading for help he couldn't give, not from the mercy of three different tentacles holding him in the air as they chomped at his body. His eye twitched. "Yeah it uh, it screamed. It screamed a lot. It sounded like a man. He kept" Max readjusted so that his ear was closer to Ed's face. He must have gotten quieter on accident. "He kept asking me to help him, but I couldn't. It, um, it wasn't… it wasn't great."

Isabel's thumb traced one of the indents in his skin, running soothing circles into the marred flesh. "Ed," her voice was softer than usual. "You know they're not human anymore, right? There was nothing you could've done-?"

"Yeah, Izzy, I know." _But still…_

They arrived at school, then, treading as smoothly up the hill as they could with Ed's (he swore it was slight) limp. "How exactly are you going to make it through a day of school like this?"

Ed turned to look at Max, face destitute of emotion.

"I'm going to crawl around the hallways and hope somebody has mercy on my poor mangled body."

"Guys!"

The three turned to the top of the hill where Dimitri, of all people, stood. From the distance, he almost looked… frantic? Ed quirked an eyebrow. He came rushing down the hill toward them, moving so fast his heels hardly even met the ground with each step. His eyes were wide and panicked, hands moving so spastically it was hard to follow either one- Ed tried. "Turn back! Turn back now!"

"What? Why?"

"Don't ask, just go!" He slowed to stand in front of them, bending over and heaving for air, wincing back at them as they stood glancing at each other. "Go before-!"

"Dimitri Danger?" He swallowed hard and turned around to look at the trail he'd just taken.

Two men in dark suits stood at the top of the hill, looking laughably like the ones from the Men in Black movies. One stood with his hands behind his back, gray hair combed back neatly so that it didn't fall in his eyes. The other one held a clipboard and a pen, marking off something, Ed couldn't tell. Dimitri seemed to take a moment to collect himself, slowly straightening his posture, clenched hands slipping almost casually into his pockets. He turned around with a tightened gaze, voice low and cool with a dangerous undertone Ed was positive only they could hear. "Yeah?"

"You'll be coming with us." The other man, the one holding the clipboard, turned his shade-covered eyes on the three of them, voice oddly similar to Will Smith's. Where the other man had a head full of grey hair, he was bald. "You three are…?"

"Um," Max went to shrug, then remembered Ed around his arm and huffed. "I'm Maxwell Puckett."

"Ed Burger?"

"Isabel Guerra?"

"Right." The gray-haired man, who actually didn't look remotely old enough to have gray hair, once Ed looked a little closer, nodded. "You'll be coming with us, as well."

* * *

There were caution tapes bordering the front entrance to the school, mobs of students lined up on the other side, watching and chattering. They'd almost thought it was because of the obvious unusual men escorting them to a large black van, but on second glance, each student held what appeared to be a school newspaper, more than any of them had ever seen Suzy sell. The other kids fell into a hushed silence as they looked up, the crowd's eyes falling on the four of them as they came up the hill. Some whispered when they saw them, and some backed away slowly. Caution and fear swept the student body in varying forms, and every student that fell victim to it as they passed left the foursome with a twisted suspicion forming in their heavy stomachs. It took the men a few moments, directing curious student after unsettled student to stand behind the tape- or else, but eventually they lead them over to the van. Spender and Isaac were already there, Spender looking pensive, Isaac looking anxious. Upon arrival, they were all stripped of their bags, more importantly their tools, each discarded somewhere into the front of the vehicle.

Isabel had only just began to ask what was going on when a pair of cold handcuffs slipped around her wrists. She jumped and turned around, but not fast enough to escape the shackles cutting into her skin. The other man in black went to working handcuffs onto Spender, as well, while the other one slapped some onto Ed. "What is the meaning of this!" Spender moved so that he stood between one man and the rest of his students. "Uncuff us! We've done nothing wrong!"

"Nothing aside from harbor mutant powers." The man with the clean-shaven head frowned and brushed by Spender, locking cuffs on Max just as his partner locked a set on Dimitri.

Spender's voice dropped, anger fading to timid disbelief. "What?" They all looked to each other, eyes wide, hearts stopping, faces collapsing as the world around them followed suit. Spender growled and dug his heels into the ground, not that it would help them now. "Who has been spreading such lies about us!"

Dimitri's eyes fell to the side, sharp and murderous. His nails dug into his own palms with such sheer resentment that he broke skin. In a voice thick with death-dealing intent, he hissed: "Look at the mess you've made."

The rest of the club followed his line of vision, breaths hitched, until their eyes finally fell upon one of their own.

They fell upon Isaac.

He'd been glancing away,hands shoved in his pockets, lips thin and eyes distant. He looked up when Dimitri spoke, met their gazes with uncertainty. He seemed contemplative before settling on one emotion. His face turned dark, flushed of all color, leaving only skin as cold as his freezing eyes, so pale and blue he might as well have been dead. The circles under his eyes were darker than his lashes, and his body shivered at their gaze, but he stood taller than before, a scowl on his lips. His voice was hoarse, and slick with indifference, each word as icy as the frozen blue sleet in his eyes.

"You wanted a traitor? You got one."

One by one, reality hit each of them. Max and Ed and Spender fell slack with grief, shoulders falling as far as their faces. Isabel's face grew vicious, bloodthirsty, lips curled in a snarl. "You-!"

The two men began roughly escorting them into the truck, one turning to look at Isaac as he shoved the last person, Max, behind the shutting doors. "I wouldn't be too happy if I were you, mutant. The only reason you're allowed to walk is because your little friend pulled some strings." As he said this, the other man shivered.

"How could a little girl be so… scary?"

Isaac nodded and turned away, intent on shoving the unfathomable guilt fighting for control of his body into the deepest pits of himself.

* * *

They won. They got to watch from the third floor of the school as the van rolled away, presumably never to be seen again. She should have been jumping for joy, but all Suzy could manage was a hand against the window, other tucked at her heart. Collin stood beside her, as always. Him. Her one comfort. He'd been good to her- too good, and she knew it. He didn't deserve the share the weight on her shoulders this time, and still, he did. She swallowed hard and rested her head against the glass near her palm, letting the tips of her nails slide as her worst enemies drove down the hill of Mayview, out of sight, but not out of mind.

"Collin?"

He took a moment to respond. "Yeah?"

"Did we…" she licked her lips. She'd never thought she'd question anything she'd do in the name of the truth, in the name of her dream, but there she was, wondering if she was even cut out to be a journalist if she was so heavy with guilt. "Did we do the right thing?"

He didn't respond right away. Instead he fell silent, shoulder brushing against hers as he shifted his weight. Collin sighed, and from the side, she could see him shake his head.

"I don't know, Suzy. I really, honestly don't know."

* * *

"How could you be so careless?" Doorman's voice had risen higher than Isaac had ever imagined it might go. He took a step back, but forced himself to stay put. Doorman was his friend. "Not only have you committed several acts of needless violence, no matter how provoked, but you've betrayed your friends-!"

Isaac bit back. "They're not my friends!"

"Teammates, then! Isaac," he bent lower so that their faces were inches apart. Isaac saw his face reflected back at him, and for the first time, he could see how utterly lifeless he looked, how pale his eyes were, how white his skin was, and how his dull hair sat lifeless atop his head. He glanced away. "Do you not see what you have done? You have hurt Richard Spender and your peers once again, the very opposite of the redemption you seek!"

"Well maybe I don't care about redemption anymore!"

"You do."

Isaac flinched.

Doorman continued, folding his hands politely, as if trying to make up for the way he'd lost his temper, though he truly had nothing to be sorry for. "I know you. You are a remoresful, caring person with a heart larger than most people could dream of. You tend to love with every inch of it, Young Master Isaac." Doorman kept his attention locked on him, but he'd long since decided he wouldn't be looking back. "So it is painful for you when others do not reflect that love." He paused, and once again bent down to Isaac's level, hands setting gently, kindly, upon his shoulders. "That is why the club pains you so."

Isaac winced, fists tightening enough to draw blood.

"It is not too late to fix things, Isaac."

"Well I don't want to!" With a light, pleading push to Doorman's chest, Isaac turned on his heel and sped for the door, slamming it open so harshly that it came apart from the moldy wall. As soon as the first foot hit the ground, he was off running. He pushed past twigs and branches and ignored the cuts each passing tree left on him, as though pleading with him to turn around- go back; but he couldn't.

They deserved it! They deserved what they got! He wouldn't raise a finger to help them, not when they'd left him high and dry, left him to figure things out and nearly die trying every single day. _They'd leave me there, wouldn't they? So they can stay there! They can stay there and die for all I care!_

He just needed to get home.


	13. Chapter 13

_Friday_

The cell they stuck them in was cold, and dry enough Max thought he'd get a nosebleed, not that it mattered much. He was sure a nosebleed would be the least of his problems when scientists got to work dissecting all of them. Max huffed and let his head fall into his curled up knees, not even bothering to readjust his cap when the wing bunched awkwardly.

"I can't believe him." Isabel mumbled, clenching and unclenching her fists. She leaned against the wall between Ed, who sat in the corner, and Dimitri, who had both hands on the bars of their cell and was leaning into it with his entire body. "How could he do this to us? That little traitor! Who does he think he is?" She grinded her teeth and brought both fists to eye-level. "When we get out of here, he'll be lucky if I don't-!"

She continued rambling on after that, muttering aloud about all of the brutal things she'd do to Isaac next time they met. Max glanced up from his legs, setting his chin atop the bottom of his thighs, looking to Spender, who'd taken the seat beside him on the single twin bed they'd allotted them with. He sat with his legs apart, elbow resting at his knee, running a hand through his sweaty hair. His head was turned away from the rest of them, watching what laid beyond their cell door, reticent even when spoken to. He'd been off in his own mind the twenty-four hours that they'd been there, and a few times Max had bent forward just the smallest bit to check if he was speaking to his spirit.

He wasn't.

"He'll be lucky to make it out alive if I ever see him again!" Isabel continued on, not that she was saying anything new. She'd been ranting on and off for the better part of the night; he'd learned to appreciate the background noise in the silence of their cell. Max glanced to Ed, who had stubbornly plopped down where he was. They'd tried to get him to take the bed with his injuries, but he refused with the excuse that he was feeling fine, and that Zarei hadn't let him leave the bed the entire night- even when he needed to use the restroom, apparently, and so he was sick of beds for the moment. Looking at him then, Max almost felt inclined to pick him up and toss him at the bed if he had to. Ed was curled in the corner, shifting constantly, eyes always on the floor in front of him. His cheeks were red and puffed, and if Max looked hard enough, he thought he might have seen cartoonish steam rising from his ears. Max understood. Ed wasn't one to throw fits in anger the way Isabel and, though she'd probably kill him if he pointed it out to her now, Isaac were inclined to. He was mad, too, he guessed, if only because it was the only thing keeping him from freaking out about the situation at hand.

Dimitri seemed the most put-together of them all, and Max figured that was because he was scheming a way to break out of their cell. Max grimaced. Their tools were all tucked away in some god-knows-where place in the god-knows-where base they were being kept in. He had no idea what Dimitri's abilities entailed, but it was clear that he'd have already broken the bars of their cell had he been able to.

Max sighed and ducked his head back into his legs. _What the flip were you even thinking, Isaac?_

* * *

"Tea?"

Isaac blinked and shook himself from his thoughts, glancing at the thermos Collin held out to him. He hadn't even noticed the yellow-green top until it was waving around in front of his face.

"Oh, uh, I'm okay, thank you."

Collin nodded and retreated to Suzy's side at the head of the journalism club table, pouring some of the tea into a paper cup stolen from the cafeteria. Suzy thanked him under her breath, ducking her head between her arms as he set it on the table in front of her. "I should be on top of the world right now," she mumbled. "But I just feel so wrong…"

Isaac hummed and slid both wrists, which had been sitting on the table, into his lap where his hands grasped at his jeans.

School had been odd since the paper came out. There was still debate over whether or not the article was even real, and if the weird men in black the day before had anything to do with the story at all, considering Isaac was still there. After all, he was the only one they had photographic proof of, so logically he'd have been taken too, right? That's why there'd been rumors that Suzy had, in fact, doctored the image, and that Spender and the rest had been taken away for… well, the word ranged from child labor to tax evasion. Needless to say, the masses hadn't been convinced either way, and Isaac wasn't about to fix it.

Collin hummed and poured himself a cup in the top of the thermos, eyes looking dull as their lidded stare fell over nothing in particular. "It feels like nothing in the last twenty-four hours just happened." He pulled the seat between Isaac and Suzy out at the side of the table, then plopped into it unceremoniously.

"I should be in there with them." Isaac's voice sounded hoarse and disbelieving, even to his own ears, exactly the way he felt. "You know, getting tortured or experimented on or whatever…"

"You know," Suzy chuckled, moving the end of her cup around in circles to watch the tea flow with each motion, but her eyes stuck to his own. "You sound like a dead man walking."

"Maybe I am."

He hadn't even realized he'd said it until Suzy and Collin were watching him with wide eyes, unblinking. Their brows furrowed, and suddenly another wave of guilt washed over him.

He opened his mouth to say something else, anything to lighten the mood again, but before he could, something echoed in the hall, even from behind the closed door.

Screaming.

It was distant, but it was loud, and it was horrified. They all turned to face the door, Isaac readying a small bolt of the lightning in the hand closest to their only exit. The sound faded, and still they waited, Suzy with both palms on the table, Collin clutching his thermos as tightly as he probably could. Isaac moved to stand up, slowly, inching away from his chair and moving around it so that he was standing in front of the door, lightning circling in his hand. Nobody moved. Nobody made a sound. Isaac couldn't even hear himself breathing.

When nothing came, he backed away and let the power at his palm die.

"Phew," Suzy brushed the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away imaginary sweat. "Thank goodness it was nothing!"

The front door collapsed into dust and paint and wood, knocking Isaac on his rear and rendering him dazed. He tried to blink through the clouds, vision blurred by either his fall or the dust in the air. If he winced, he thought he could make out something red, something not bright but dark as maroon, inching down the threshold where the door once was. He could hear Suzy and Collin screaming, but there was a third voice he had no face to piece to. He shook his head and used his hands to press his body further back, scooching away from the mess of drywall. He could feel it sticking to his face already. His vision was beginning to clear, and slowly he could make out what looked like a clump of flesh. His heart stopped in his chest, flashes of muddy claws and ectoplasm and… blood.

" _This world will be ours again."_

He swallowed hard, looking up to find another of… whatever that thing from two weeks ago was, clawing towards him on nails that looked too sharp to be human but too pink to be anything else. It appeared to be two bodies stuck together, one straight atop with a small head and lanky body, no eyes with a mouth as wide as his arm and filled with sharp teeth. The lower body was the one crawling towards him, looking eerily the same aside from the one bloodshot eye the size of his entire hand looking up at him. The top part of the body screamed, and Isaac flinched, raising a spectral fist on instinct and smashing the closer head into the ground. The entire thing screeched, and Isaac took the moment to stand up. He whipped around, grabbing Suzy in one arm and Collin in the other. Collin squeaked and Suzy gasped, turning her head as much as she could with the awkward way he'd grabbed her, horizontally with one arm wrapped under both of hers. "Isaac," she winced. "What are you doing?"

"Just hold on!"

He wasn't sure he could pull it off, but he had to- he had to!

With a deep, quick breath, Isaac ran straight into the wall-length windows of the clubroom, shattering them upon impact. Suzy and Collin both screamed and latched to him for dear life, freeing up one of his hands. Isaac grunted and held it out before them, concentrating as best as he could with the force of the air smacking him in the face. They began to fall from the third floor, and all breath left him, then. His lungs sat upwards in his chest, so tight against his throat he couldn't even think about breathing. His heart stopped, and all he could hear was the wind against his suddenly freezing ears. His body launched towards the ground with the extra weight of two people, and for a moment he forgot how to use his powers.

 _Come on, come on, come on! Work, please work!_

They were gaining on the ground fast, and Isaac grinded his teeth, focusing every bit of his energy on just not hitting it. Like magic, a tornado spiraled from his palm, hitting the ground moments before they did, blasting them three more feet into the air. They all shrieked as the force pushed them back, and in seconds they'd hit the ground with a huff, safely.

Suzy and Collin rolled off of him at the same time, coughing up sand and grass, and it was all he could hear aside from the screaming, loud as the drumming in his ears. He sat up, one hand pressed to his aching head, and looked towards the rest of the school.

In windows he could see more of them, more of the things, each of them as horrific as the first, picking up students and shaking them, throwing teachers across the hall. Isaac watched in terror as one lifted a student and swallowed them whole.

His stomach twisted; he felt sick.

Suzy and Collin looked up at him as he stood, bewilderment in their sandy eyes. "Where" Suzy coughed up another lung as he offered a hand to help her up "are you going?"

He frowned and tugged Collin to his feet by the collar of his shirt, then twisted around and nodded for them to follow. "Just follow me! Don't ask questions, just _run_!"

And so they did. They carried their legs as fast as they could go, as fast as Isaac could go, turning around to catch a glimpse of the carnage Isaac had seen. "Why don't we just" she gasped as she tripped on a twig, quickly adjusting herself so that she wasn't going to fall. "Why don't we just find a gun or something and shoot those things?"

Collin looked at her as she turned back around, meeting her panicked gaze with the usual miffed look. "Would guns even work?"

Isaac frowned, eyes narrowing at the road ahead of him. _There's only one place we can go._


	14. Chapter 14

It's was taller than he remembered, and bursting from every end with spectral energy. He supposed he'd never really been inside, so maybe sitting at the bottom of the hill in Spender's car had somehow constructed his view? It didn't really matter now.

Isaac clenched his fists, eyeing the Guerra dojo up and down, skin buzzing with anticipation.

"Isaac, what is this place, exactly?" Suzy came to stand beside him, tilting her head to the side and sizing the unfamiliar place up, same as he was doing. "It's like a weird, creepy orphanage…"

"In a creepy novel about magic or something," Collin agreed, coming to Isaac's other side. "Seriously, Isaac, what are we doing here?"

"Getting help."

"From who?"

Suzy squeaked when Isaac turned to her, setting his hands on either shoulder. She blinked back at him, and he took a deep breath before she could speak. "Listen to me, you're going to go in there, and you're going to ask for Master Guerra."

"What?"

"And you're going to tell him how there are… things… attacking the school, and Spender and his students are all in trouble and can't take care of it themselves."

"Isaac-!"

"Okay?"

Suzy searched his eyes, and for a moment they were in a curious staring contest; each second, her gaze grew more weary. He tried to console her with his own, offer some semblance of a grip on the situation, but he was grasping at what little he had already. Suzy reached up at set her hands, very gently, on either of his. Figuring this was the sign she was willing to listen, he smiled. Then she huffed, and glared at him, and reached out to grip him by the collar. Isaac froze at the sudden tug, waving his arms around as Suzy turned on her heel and pulled him towards the front door of the dojo. Collin, although he had an eyebrow raised, followed her without a word. "S-Suzy, hold on a second!"

* * *

Suzy and Collin shivered from their seats, teeth chattering, hands trembling in their laps. Isaac sat between them, feeling just as nervous, albeit for different reasons. Guerra towered over them even when sitting cross-legged, and the aura swaying above his head, although Isaac knew they couldn't see it, was warning enough to tread carefully around his mood. "... And that's where we are, now. Those things are attacking the student body, and the rest of the club is being held somewhere, so we're completely defenseless."

"Aside from you."

Isaac grimaced. "Yes. Aside from me."

Moments of silence passed, Collin and Suzy clinging to either of Isaac's arms, Guerra staring him down with rage weighing somewhere in his lidded eyes. He felt like running, because even if he had left out the part about how the club being arrested was his fault, he still had an inkling Guerra knew somehow; he'd all but broken the dojo down when he'd first told him about where his granddaughter was. Isaac had never interacted much with the old man- he'd met him once before maybe, and he'd seen him a handful of times, looking menacing towards everybody, even Isabel, and coming to him was the last thing he wanted to do; they'd had no other choice. He was the only one who knew how to call for backup, assuming Isaac was correct and said backup existed. As much as he was scared of the potential consequences coming his way by going straight to Isabel's grandfather after he'd done what he'd done, he was scared to think of the guilt that'd plague him should he let his school and all the peers and teachers in it get devoured.

Guerra hummed and stood up suddenly; Suzy and Collin yelped and squeezed Isaac's arms tighter. "That settles it, then."

"Th-that" Collin mumbled, cheek grazing Isaac's shoulder as he pressed closer "That settles what?"

Guerra snorted and twisted around, folding his, now that Isaac was looking, terrifying large hands behind his back. "What do you think? We're going to war." He looked over his shoulder, down at Isaac, lidded eyes squeezing. Isaac swallowed hard. "And don't think you will not be punished for bringing such weaklings into my dojo. They are not trained, they see nothing, and yet you decide it is a risk to take."

Isaac nodded, turning his eyes to the floor, to his hands folded in his lap.

"You three will stay here until this battle is dealt with." Those were his parting words, and as the door closed behind him, Isaac exhaled through his teeth. _I guess I deserve that._ Suzy and Collin pulled away from him, folding their hands in their laps and turning their eyes on each other, finding the other's eyes to be reflecting their own concern. Isaac stood up, and Suzy's eyes followed him all the way over to the window. Collin's face, though the look was usually reserved for Suzy's antics, twisted. "NO. NO. NO. SIT DOWN."

Isaac brushed him off, reaching for and unlatching the window. "Where are you going, Isaac?" He pulled the bottom piece of, shifting it until it was open wide enough for him to slip through. He silently thanked Guerra for not dragging them any higher than the first floor.

"I'm going to break the activity club out."

He was expecting ranting, raving perhaps. He expected Suzy to stand and spit fire at him, tell him that if he did that, then it would have all been for nothing and he was an idiot for even considering breaking into a top secret base just to break out a group of people who never gave two Starchman stars about him in the first place.

Instead, when Suzy stood, she said: "Let me help you."

Isaac blinked and turned to look at her completely. The narrow of her eyes spoke of something aside from anger, as did the sharpness of her shoulders and the square of her jaw. The fear he'd seen, the fear he'd felt, earlier had all but disappeared, leaving only a Suzy he'd never met before. She wasn't scheming, or plotting, or bending rules or crossing lines, but she was confident. Isaac cocked his head to the side. "How?"

She chuckled- nervously?- and waved him off. "I did some digging and found out where the base would be, you know, in case I wanted an interview?"

She said that, Isaac smiled, but he could see her tugging at the collar of her pink button-up.

"Well, if you're going, then I guess I am, too, not that it's something I want to do."

Collin stood beside her, crossing his arms indignantly, although his eyes were cautious and watching Isaac. Suzy looked at him, wide blues blinking. "Wait, you don't have to come with us, Collin, I'm not forcing you this time?"

He shrugged at her, nodding to where Isaac stood, raising an eyebrow, trying to look cool. "I mean, I already follow you everywhere, and Isaac can't waste valuable time keeping an eye on you, right?"

Suzy blinked, brows furrowing, eyes watering. She clutched both hands to her chest, and smiled at him between big watery glops of tears. Sniffing, she reached up and wiped them away, pulling her visors from where they were folded at her shirt, before slipping them onto her head. With a nod and a smile in Isaac's direction, they trio began making their awkward way through the window.

It was a little smaller than Isaac originally thought…

* * *

It was mid-afternoon by the time they made it to the, admittedly-not-well-hidden base, hidden at the bottom of two converging hills at the edge of the city. It was large and beige and surrounded by electric fences, but, Isaac glanced down at his hand where lightning circled his fingers, those wouldn't be that much of a problem. "So, Suzy. How exactly did you get top secret information?"

She readjusted her glasses, leaning forward behind the bushes they'd taken as subterfuge. "Don't worry about it."

Reaching out, Isaac sent a healthy bolt of electricity at the fence, watching as the sparks followed along the lines of metal before eventually flowing to the power box that controlled it all, effectively short-circuiting it in a blast of bright blue light. The two guards on duty promptly leaped two feet in the air, falling over themselves to check out what was left of the explosion. Isaac nodded, and the three of them snuck passed the entrance, pressing their way into the base.

"Honestly?" Collin whispered as they came around a corner, a single strip of glass serving as a window between the hallway and the other side. Isaac peeked in. _Hopefully they're right… ah, there!_ The club's tools hung in their respective backpacks, sitting along a table with varying chemicals and the like. _Looks like they're trying to figure out what makes a tool a tool, huh?_ "I think Suzy was put on this earth to do nothing but get a hold of information literally nobody wants her to have."

Suzy blushed and smacked Collin's arm. "Aw, stop it!"

He squinted at her, one eye twitching. "That wasn't… a compliment!"

Isaac looked back and shushed them silently, one finger hovering above his lips. Both jumped and covered their mouths with boths hands, nodding for him to continue. Isaac turned back around and held one hand out to the electronic lock on the door. _Hope nobody hears this!_ With a small pop, the door met the same fate as the power box, cracking open for the trio's viewing pleasure. Isaac pushed the door open slowly, peeking in to be sure there was no lingering scientist in the room, finishing up a draft on what little findings they'd had. Once he was sure there was nobody in the room with them, the three slinked in, tip-toeing up to the table and grabbing as many bags as they could carry. Suzy got Dimitri's and Isabel's, Collin got Ed's and Spender's, and Isaac got Max's. "Great, now we just need to find their room!" Suzy and Collin nodded, turning around to head for the door. Isaac stayed behind, throwing Max's bag over his shoulder and turning to leave, but not before something hit the ground behind him and jingled. Stopping, he glanced back at the floor where he spotted a pair of house keys. Looking back to be sure Suzy and Collin hadn't gone too far ahead, he bent down and swooped them up. On the keychain sat a small charm, a surfboard with a single word scribbled across the length in relaxed cursive. _Maybury. That's a city around an hour from here. They must have called a scientist in from out of town._

"Isaac!" He leaped around, stealthily tucking the keys into his back pocket. Suzy and Collin stood at the door, urgently gesturing for him to follow.

* * *

"Please tell me" Max swung his legs over the side of the bed, pushing himself up with sheer force of will "that somebody has an escape plan." He glanced around the room, eyes falling first on Isabel, then Ed, then Spender, each response a negative. Max frowned and looked to Dimitri, who was staring stubbornly at the floor on the other side of their cell wall. "Not even you?"

A moment passed, and Dimitri slowly shook his head.

Max exhaled and raised a hand to rub between his eyes.

"Sorry," Dimitri mumbled. "Guess I've gotten dull in my time away from the club." Max blinked and shook his head, gaze shooting to meet Dimitri's regretful face, corners of his lips downturned.

"Wait, wha-?"

"Well," Isabel tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, smiling at dimitri from the side. "I'm glad you're here with us now?"

Dimitri's lips curved into a small circle before falling into a small smile, lidded eyes glancing over Isabel's face before he nodded to her.

Max groaned and tossed his head back. "So literally nobody has any plan at all?"

"I've got one?"

Max felt his entire body stiffen, heart pounding once in his chest hard enough to kill a small animal. Cautiously, he spun around, one hand held out before his body to protect himself from, well, he wasn't actually sure. He shouldn't have been surprised to see Isaac standing there, after all it was his fault they were in there- he probably wanted to gloat- but the small part of him that thought anything like that was gone the moment he saw his backpack, and bat, hanging from his shoulder. Isaac winced at him, hand twisting and squeezing at the strap of his bag, tight enough his fingers were going white. His shoulders were sagging, and eye contact with Max seemed almost painful for him. "If you want to hear it…"

"You traitor!" Isabel latched onto the bars, growling at him the moment reality struck her, sending Max sidestepping a few feet to miss her barreling into the door. "I can't believe you would do this! You're a liar and a snake! We were right to keep secrets from you, you backstabbing little-!"

"Isabel, that's enough!"

She froze. A hand reached out and set at her shoulder, gripping authoritatively but not roughly. She turned around and looked up at Spender, relieved and confused to find his eyes on Isaac and not on her. Isaac met his hooded gaze before his eyes fell to the ground, lips quivering, and for a second Max thought he was getting ready to cry.

"Dimitri!" Suzy and Collin ran by him, tossing the club's blags and their tools at the bottom of the cell, just within the club's reach. Dimitri seemed delighted, if not surprised, by Suzy's hands folding over his own. Collin stood by her side and gripped his forearm, but both faced him with wide, apologetic doe eyes. Their apologies came out in fumbles, quiet enough that they wouldn't alert anyone, but loud enough that they simply tumbled over each other's unpaced amends. Dimitri chuckled and squeezed Suzy's hands in his own.

"Guys, please, it's okay. You had no idea what you were getting yourselves into." He turned his teasing eyes upon Isaac, who seemed to shrink under his gaze. "Believe it or not, I could say the same about you."

Isaac's cheeks brightened, but his shoulders stayed slumped, and his eyes still drifted uncomfortably out of contact with every set that tried. Max watched as he set one hand on the lock of their door, shorting it out with one small bolt. The club filtered out around him almost immediately, each person grabbing their bags and chattering about how to best escape the base unnoticed. Max stood unmoving, watching Isaac through the muted chaos; he wasn't sure if they were whispering, or if he just couldn't hear them. Isaac met his bothered gaze with a reluctant one, and for just a second, Max could see the remorse in him- the scrunch of his nose, the narrow of his eyes, the tremble of his thinned lips…

Then Isaac's eyes fell to the ground again, and the second had passed.


	15. Chapter 15

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" Stephen backed into Johnny, who reached back and gripped his arm in a shaking hand.

RJ whipped beat down a lingering fleshy tentacle down with a bat from the gym broom closet, crouching down just as Ollie swung a net, filled to the brim with soccer balls, over their head. The balls made contact with another tentacle, crushing against the wall under the weight. "What is going on? What are these things?"

RJ straightened up, fixing their hoodie with hands that wouldn't cooperate. "It's something out of every horror movie we've ever watched!" They turned their wide eyes on Johnny, who slammed the door on yet another tentacle inching through the cracked-open door of what would have been Miss Baxter's classroom. "What do we do, Johnny?"

"I don't-!" He swallowed hard. "I don't know!"

What was there to do? Find a way out of the school? That seemed like a good start, but he wasn't entirely sure the… things… hadn't already made it out into the rest of the city. Were his parents okay? He flinched, both hands reaching up and grasping his head. Were his friends' parents okay? "I don't know! I don't f-!"

Something loud and obnoxious revved up, riding fast up the staircase in the distance. RJ and Ollie turned around, and Johnny let his hands fall back to his sides. "What the…?"

One of the clumps of flesh, which had been occupied carrying itself up the stairs, paused in its plight, seemingly as curious as Johnny was about the sudden racket.

Then the thing was nothing but blood, crushed under the weight of a lawn mower pounding up the stairs behind it. Johnny and company watched as it momentarily became airborne, faces contorting in confusion at the sight of the activity club- and the journalism club- latched to the mower with Isaac at the back, spouting wind, and Max at the front with a metal bat.

* * *

"WAA HOO!" Max crowed as the lawn mower hit the tiled floor, using his free hand to steer it to the side, heading down the hall. He thought he might have seen Johnny on their way by, but he wasn't too bothered with him at the moment, though it was nice to see somebody he knew hadn't already been sucked up and digested. "Did I tell you this was a good idea or what?"

Ed nearly tumbled off as Spender unintentionally fell a few inches back. He waved his arms around manically until Isabel screeched and reached the hand that wasn't clinging to Spender's waist for dear life to grab him by the collar. "WHAT!"

Max looked over his shoulder. "I said-!"

"I HEARD YOU!"

Spender reached out and grabbed Max's shoulder, nodding ahead. "We're almost to the cafeteria! That should be the center of the school! From there, we'll fan out!"

Max nodded and turned back around, gripping the wheel with more force. "Hey, Isaac! We need some more juice!"

"I'm-!" He grunted from the back, maneuvering himself so that his hands were pushing them more forward as opposed to upward. His efforts nearly sent him falling off, but Dimitri and Collin gripped his bottom half at the last second, Suzy pressing one hand to her mouth to stifle a yelp. He raised one hand to silently thank them before putting it back to work. "I'm trying, okay? This takes more energy than it looks!"

The mower slid into the cafeteria, mowing- pun intentional- down a monster ready to strike a student down. The girl wiped frantically at the tears streaming down her face before crawling away as fast as she could.

The club hopped off, then Collin and Dimitri, who paused and turned around to help Suzy down.

Isaac was the first to charge forward, conjuring a massive bolt of lightning larger than his head, sending it straight into the closest clump of flesh he could find. "Oh my god, dude!" Max gestured to the bloody monster, swaying back and forth, trying to regain its footing. "I thought you said you were running low on energy!"

"Well," he moved out of the way as Ed took out the other half with a painted sword. "Now I'm not."

Max scowled at Isaac, but he shrugged it off.

The rest of the club got to work taking down monsters, Max and Isabel going at a monster with three arms and a sideways, sharp-toothed mouth, Max swinging at its core and Isabel distracting it as best she could with her umbrella. Spender and Ed double-teamed another monster, Spender wrapping a shadow around its only eye as Ed drew up a spear and sent it through the gum-only mouth parting to scream. Dimitri stuck close to Suzy and Collin, driving his hand through everything that so much as tried to peck at them.

Isaac stayed close to them, but was less focused than Dimitri might have been. All he could do was fight, all he could think about was lightning. He grabbed one monster's tentacle near the tip, hand squeezing the eyeball attached as he sent wave after wave of electricity bolting through it. The monster screamed, and though the human-spirit hybrid sound unsettled him, he wouldn't let it distract him. He raised one leg and let wind collect around it, a tornado rolling and growing and roaring around it. It took him more concentration and balance than he had, but with a swift kick to the monster's side, it went flying across the cafeteria and into the wall, stuck in wood and drywall.

"ISAAC, LOOK OUT!"

Straight-faced, he spun around, sizing up the sharp, bloody teeth opening and salivating over him. The mouth was as tall as he was and took up one full side of the monster before him; its jaws parted further and the smell was putrid, something like eggs and feces, overwhelming and nauseating. Isaac nearly puked on the spot, but before he could even raise an arm to his nose, it charged.

Isaac remained where he stood, unflinching.

"Back" Dimitri came down on it from overhead, leg raised and vibrating, covered in orange aura. He cut the mouth straight off the body, sending the rest of its body falling backward, motionless. "Off!" He landed next to Isaac, turning a lidded glare on him before he could even say "thank you". Suzy and Collin, holding onto each other, approached them slowly, leaving what little cover the lawn mower offered them.

"What exactly were you doing?"

"What?" It was less of a question and more of a comment to brush him off.

"You didn't even move! Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"No." Isaac raised one hand and set it at his shoulder, rolling it around. Another tentacle approached him, fast as a snake in the grass, and he sidestepped it as Dimitri cut it in half. Their eyes met again, and Isaac turned around. "Just not exactly trying to get out alive."

Dimitri froze, tightened eyes widening, as Suzy and Collin reached him.

Isabel screamed out as a clawed monster got her right in the shoulder, although just barely. She twisted around to get at it when Ed leaped in front of her. The clawed hand reached for her again, but Ed raised his scythe and cut it clean in half. It kept coming, not stopping even when most of it was sliced, until the monster itself came running at them. Ed growled and set his scythe aside, setting it on the ground and leaping to stand atop it so that he was taller than the monster. There he drew a large, sharpened circle and, with great balance, leaped from his perch and sliced the monster right down the middle. Blood and ectoplasm predictably followed, and Isabel had to wipe her face of it. Ed landed on his heel in front of her, immediately turning around and running straight to her. "Izzy! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Ed. I'm fine!" She smiled at him. "It's just a scratch!"

His sigh was heavy with relief, and so was his smile.

"All right, children, gather round!" Spender raised both hands and gestured for his students to come closer. Each pair made their way over, albeit struggling among the messes they'd made. Suzy stepped in the mucus of a monster on its last legs and squeaked, falling backwards into Collin, who caught her in exasperated arms, and shook her foot clear of it. Undigested students and teachers crawled around in the mush, looking dazed and confused, helping each other up or falling all over the place. Max paused to help a sixth grader up who, though scared and delirious, thanked him kindly for, uh, buying him a cookie from the cafeteria. Max waved him off and approached the growing circle with the rest of the group. "Now, there are a lot of monsters around here, and it'll be awfully difficult for any of you to fight them alone." He glanced at Ed from the side, who reached up and grabbed at his still-healing shoulder. Isabel frowned. "So we'll be splitting into teams. Dimitri, you'll be coming with me." Dimitri nodded, and Suzy and Collin both reached up and grabbed at either of his arms. "Isabel, Ed, you two are together." They looked to each other and nodded. Spender turned on Isaac and Max, both looking deathly serious, as he supposed they should have been. "Max, Isaac… can I trust you two to work together?"

Max looked at Isaac head on, but found his partner only looking at him from the side. _Still not up for eye-contact, huh?_ "Yeah," Max answered for both of them. "We can do that."

The teams split up, Dimitri and Spender (and, of course, Suzy and Collin) heading to the East wing, Isabel and Ed heading for the South wing, and Isaac and Max headed for the West wing. The mood of the room, though initially strong with confidence, had petered out as each group parted. A hint of dread fell in cold air, riding on the coattails of obligation. There were a few uncertain looks back, primarily from the present non-spectrals, but they all had their fair share of uneasy thoughts.

"Dimitri!"

He twisted around at Isabel's voice, one eyebrow raised. She'd paused on their way out the door they'd come in, waving at him from across the cafeteria as Ed pressed passed the threshold. "You're a little rusty from so long outta the game, right? Be safe!"

He blinked, then shook his head and chuckled to himself. With a wave and a grin, he yelled back. "You too! Wouldn't wanna see that pretty smile all torn up!"

Isabel's waving hand dropped instantly, face flushing as red as her aura. He winked at her and continued on his way.

* * *

Isaac was terrifyingly brutal, far more than Ed and even laughably more than Isabel. When Max had weakened one monster down, Isaac was ripping them apart like nothing. Max cringed and wiped the blood that'd hit him dead on, raising an eyebrow at the carnage in their wake. "Hey, dude?"

"What?" Isaac was more preoccupied dragging a fist of electricity through a monster than he was answering whatever it was Max was about to ask, the ring of his tone didn't exactly hide that.

Max dodged a tentacle, which he noted with disgust was slick with slime and ectoplasm, and took a swing wherever his instincts led him. Gratefully, his sixth sense knew what it was talking about most of the time, and the hit landed square in the unblinking eye-of-sauron-looking sucker rising on him to his left. "Is there a reason you're blatantly ignoring your own moral code?"

Isaac paused as soon as the monster he'd driven a fist through fell to his feet, unmoving, wiping away the blood at his cheeks, perhaps ineffectually, considering his hand was covered in it up to his elbow. The sideways glance he gave Max wasn't as cold as it had been the weeks leading up to- Max mentally shook the thought off- his betrayal, but it was still distant, like an invisible arm extended, palm upturned. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Max shrugged, pushing down the curiosity urging him to glance around at their torn-apart, ravaged school; Isaac was not only more important, but momentarily more interesting. "You're kinda acting… violent."

Isaac shrugged right back at him, gesturing to his entirety. "You're beating that thing to death with a metal bat, and I'm the one being violent?"

Max glanced down at the monster raising one shaking claw up to his face before taking the final swing and stepping away with a wince. "Right." He'd forgotten, in the adrenaline of it all, that those things weren't just spirits, they were people. They had friends and family, even if they were all long gone, and that thought got to him the worst. They'd been stuck, struggling for dominance of their own body, living with nothing but agony and torture long enough they didn't even have a life to return to. He guessed, by that thought process, that he was releasing them for all of that, but he still wasn't sure the concept sat well with him.

He came to stand by Isaac's side, frowning as they both stopped to take in the scenery. Blood and ectoplasm were all over the halls and lockers, clumps of monster remains littering the hall, looking like hatched monster eggs instead of corpses. The students they'd saved, and presumably their other teammates had saved, wandered around the halls looking lost and horrified. Max got that; they were swallowed whole, after all. People don't usually expect to survive that. Ghosts that had been saved alongside students hugged each other and spun around in glee, though others moved casually along as usual. They must have been used to getting devoured and spit back up. The lights hanging above swung menacingly, blinking on and off, sometimes fizzling out before coming back on only moments later. Some lamps were shattered, but others had just been smacked around. Max side-eyed his shoulder and brushed ectoplasm from it. "Do you think they've gotten out into the city?" His dad and Zoe and Pj and Lefty came to mind. Part of him wanted to leave the school right then, go charging down the hill until he hit home so he could be sure they were completely safe, or he could hide them.

Isaac shook his head. "No. The city was pretty calm on our way back here, remember? These things are attacking the school specifically. I just don't know why."

Max sighed, and Isaac continued on down the hall. He followed him, careful not to trip and slip over the mess that surrounded them.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

Max licked his dry lips, cringing inwardly when they tasted like copper. "Is there a reason you saved us?"

Isaac paused ahead of him, and Max thought he might turn on him and snap, go into hysterics about his reasoning and get all mushy and heartfelt and dramatic.

Instead he huffed.

"I just needed your help. Don't think about it too much."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and continued on, and Max felt irritation rise as he scurried off after him.

"Why are you being such a jerk?"

"Because you're asking rhetorical questions."

* * *

Another monster down, only infinitely many more to go. Spender stood straight and readjusted his glasses, watching Dimitri give the monster they'd tag-teamed a finishing blow. As predicted, it created a mess, and he could hear Suze and Collin shrieking to themselves somewhere behind them. He grimaced. "You know it isn't safe, don't you?"

He couldn't see them with his back turned, but he knew they nodded their heads.

"That's just who they are." Dimitri stood too, vibrating his hand clean of ectoplasm. "Suzy goes running headfirst into danger, and Collin's just along for the ride." He glanced to the side at them and smiled, and Spender could practically feel their moods lifting.

With a sigh, he continued onward. He was worried about them. They weren't spectrals with any powers to speak of, and there wasn't a whole lot to hand them for weapons- anything that'd be effective, anyway. They did have Dimitri, at least, who seemed nothing if not intent on defending them. Even should he fail, he had a feeling Dimitri would pick up more than half the slack in his place.

"They'll be after us now, you know."

Spender raised an eyebrow as they continued down the hallway, silently urging Dimitri to continue his thought. He was always the more serious of his students, and often had a tendency to appear- and to be- more mature than his classmates. Even then, with what were perhaps the most terrifying enemies Spender himself had ever faced (aside from one, he could almost hear Lucifer reminding him), Dimitri seemed cool and collected, eyes focused on the hall ahead of them. "Who will be?"

"The men who arrested us. You think they're gonna just let us go 'cause we happened to escape? With all due respect, sir, they're gonna come after us."

"Maybe if my superiors hadn't predicted something like this would inevitably happen."

Dimitri blinked and looked up to him, and Spender was reminded that he never looked more his age than when he'd been surprised. He smiled back at him. "You have people on the inside?"

"Of course. This isn't the first time the spectral world was in danger of being exposed" He frowned again, humming more to himself than aloud. "Though, it is the first time such a large number of non-spectrals have been in contact with a paranatural entity, and we can't be sure word hasn't spread outside of the city."

"Because of my article?"

Suzy's voice was tentative, but he could hear how ready she was to take responsibility. SHe must have felt some semblance of guilt for the part she'd played in leaving the school defenseless, but he by no means blamed her. Even if she had gone to the authorities, he imagined even an adult unfamiliar with their world might have had the same reaction.

"I doubt your article raised too much suspicion, Suzy. You are, after all, a school newspaper, and as I recall, your organizer hasn't been very good about funding you." Suzy growled under her breath, but he had a feeling it was less directed at him and more the situation at hand. "As true to journalism as you were, I can't help but think the conclusion most would come to was that it was an attention-grab."

"Right."

Dimitri chuckled. "You knew Isaac would come around, didn't you?"

Spender smiled.

* * *

The last monster in their wing, at least she was semi-certain of that, hit the ground with a thud and a twitch; Isabel and Ed high-fived. It'd been a little larger than some of the other ones they'd tag-teamed, but still not quite as ferocious as it might have been had they been separated. It was fat and it smelled of stale blood and an uncleaned mouth, stench strong enough they'd both raised a fist to their mouths simultaneously to keep from upchucking right then and there. Its skin perpetually was melting and sinking back into itself- on the bright side, it would often slip over itself. It was easy enough for Isabel to flip it over while Ed sliced it down the middle. "Man," she crowed, setting a hand on her shoulder, rolling it around to stretch it. "It feels good to be your partner again!"

Ed smiled at her, and she smiled right back.

She stopped and looked from him to the ground, fumbling around with the words she wanted to say. Could she just come out and ask him why he'd been lying to her? Would he tell her the truth? Would it be better for her plan if she never confronted him about it and just hoped he'd change his mind? Maybe. But maybe they'd both been dancing around each other, and maybe they both should have been upfront from the beginning.

Maybe she could turn things around by doing what she should have done in the first place.

"Hey, Ed?" She clenched her umbrella in one nervous hand, looking back to him as she began. It was then that she saw his eyes were somewhere behind them, and he didn't exactly look relieved. She turned to face the end of the hallway as he was, and his distracted gaze certainly made sense then.

The monster was larger than every other they'd faced, she could tell even as it slinked around at the end of the hall. It sat so high its head, or what she guessed was its head, brushed against the ceiling, leaving a trail of ectoplasm and blood on both ends. It rammed into the lamps above, bending and snapping them as it passed. When it moved forward, each fell to the floor, hitting the ground and darkening the hallway with a threatening

 _SMASH… crunch… crunch…_

They both took a step back as it approached them, millions of eyes blinking with no coordination, looking at everything and nothing all at the same time. There were thousands of mouths for each eye, some talking, some screaming, some crying.

Some hissed and cackled.

" _Help me!"_

" _What is happening?"_

" _You'll all get what's coming to you!"_

" _This body is mine! It's mine!"_

All at once, she was reminded that they weren't just fighting normal spirits- these things were human, too, or had been once. Isabel reached out and gripped Ed's arm, and he turned only slightly to look at her, eyes still pasted to the monster approaching. Her eyes were trained to the set settling on them, blinking but never wavering as it grew on them.

* * *

He'd knocked down around twenty different attempts on Isaac's life in their time partnering up that afternoon, he was sure of it. Isaac was acting recklessly, tearing through monster after monster with no remorse, though he knew nobody had filled him in on just what the monsters were yet; that might have been a good thing, considering he was sure he'd be horrified with himself if he knew, but it was bad because he wasn't treading as carefully as Max was, and he still had no clue why. They'd just taken another monster down, Max batting a claw with fatal-intent headed Isaac's way, when the urge to say something finally kicked in.

"Isaac."

Max watched him pause mid-step, sighing into the dead air without so much as turning to look at him. They hadn't cleared their wing just yet, but if he didn't say something soon, he had a feeling one of them wouldn't be walking out of Mayview Middle alive. "What?"

"Do you wanna tell me what's been up with you?" He waved a hand to Isaac, who couldn't see the gesture, but he did it anyway. "I've been trying to figure it out since Thursday, and honestly I can't come up with a reason you would have sold us out like that. And then, a day later- almost twenty-four hours on the dot- you break us out! Why? And before you even did all of that, you were avoiding us like we ran your dog over or something! I get that we had a fight, dude, but it wasn't that deep! What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?"

The hallway was completely silent, aside from the bouts of confusion that had the wandering student body mumbling amongst themselves. Nobody that passed by paid them any attention, too wrapped up in what just happened to them to acknowledge the only two composed bodies in the wing. Max stared Isaac's back down, hoping he could feel the heat of his glower, sense the boiling irritation seething between them. The light above them flickered on and off, fizzling faintly with life.

Then Isaac clenched his fists and whipped around. "You wanna know what my problem is?" Max took a step back upon seeing Isaac's wide, wild eyes, watching his aura grow and flare each time he blinked. "My problem is you! It's been you this whole freaking time! Wanna know why?" Max might have nodded had Isaac given him time to. "Because I was an idiot and I trusted you! I knew you for all of a week and I trusted you! Completely! Like some stupid little kid!" Isaac laughed to himself then, eyes falling from Max's to his hands- his trembling, open hands. "And look where it got me! I thought you'd be my friend! I thought you'd stand up for me! I thought you'd like me! How stupid is that?" Isaac ran a hand through his spiked hair, and Max noticed it looked duller than it used to. His aura started to die down, leaving only Isaac, who looked so small right then and so, painfully, broken. "All this time I've been holding onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, somebody would swoop in and take my side! That somebody would actually care about me and want me around! But you didn't!" Max flinched. "You betrayed me just like my gut told me you would! I was dumb enough to think that you'd be the first one to care and you just became one of them! I'm such an idiot!" Isaac's eyes found his again, looking bloodshot and glassy and wet, but the tears weren't falling. Isaac was smiling at him, laughing to himself between words, though it was clear neither of them thought anything about the situation was funny. "It's my fault, okay? I screwed up. I wanted you all to care about me, and if you didn't like me, I thought maybe..." He exhaled through his nose and shrugged with an undertone of defeat. "Maybe if I made you guys mad, then I'd be on your minds, you know? You'd think about me. But," Max felt his stomach dropping, feel the familiar sensation of guilt creeping up on him as Isaac shook his head and chuckled again. "But it just hurt worse…"

"Why" the words came out in croaks, so Max cleared his throat. "Why didn't you say anything?" Isaac looked up at him with his head downturned. "If that's how you felt, why didn't you tell us?"

The light above them flickered on. "It's not like you would have listened anyway."

Max paused. That wasn't true- without even thinking, Max knew that wasn't true. He would have listened. He knew what it was like to bottle something up, to feel like he couldn't speak his mind, to be scared he'd just make things worse is he did. Oh.

So that's what Zoe had been going on about…

Max took off his cap and ran a hand through his sweaty hair before setting it back on. "Isaac, listen-"

Then there was a scream, unsettlingly familiar, sounding so agonized Max and Isaac both felt horror settle over them.

* * *

The same scream rang through the halls of the East wing. Everyone halted and glanced upwards to the second floor, eyes wide, fear gripping each of them as the last of the scream settled over their heads. Dimitri and Spender were the first to run off down the hall, carrying themselves toward the staircase with such speed and urgency that Collin and Suzy had to mentally play catch up. Suzy, who had wrapped one arm around Collin's as the scream entered the hall, swallowed audibly. "That wasn't…" Collin looked at her, mouth open but never saying a word. "That wasn't Isabel, was it?"

* * *

"Isabel!"

Ed lunged after her as she rolled across the hall, grasping at her torn shoulder, the same place she'd told him she'd been bitten a few weeks prior. She came to a stop as he landed on the other side of her, reaching down and lifting her up in his arms. "Isabel, are you okay?" She winced up at him, one hand clutching, with pain and with vengeance, at her bleeding shoulder.

"I'm fine, but I swear I'm going to kill that thing!"

"You're too hurt to move, Izzy!"

"And you're not?" He frowned, nearly reaching up to touch one of the healing bite marks at his side. Instead, he squeezed her side where he lifted her.

"I'm healed enough."

"I can still fight." She sat up in his arms, close enough that their foreheads would have brushed had she moved any closer. Ed set a cautious hand over hers where her wound was.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as can be."

He helped her to her feet without another word. The monster at the other end of the hall shrieked from all of its mouths, each individual voice ringing in their ears, a wave of sound hitting them with so much force they both stepped back. Isabel took her hand from her shoulder, but kept Ed's in hers; she squeezed him. They looked from the monster to each other, and suddenly everything felt right again.

Like the old times, like usual, when they were a team, when they were best friends- when nobody and nothing could tear them apart, because they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. Ed found himself grinning again, the way he used to before the train and the last three weeks, and Isabel reflected it with her own bloodthirsty smirk.

 _"Your love for her will make you stronger. Focus on that."_

Then, with a battlecry that rivaled even the monster's screams, they were charging- together, full force, auras melding like fingers intertwining. Green against red, red fixing into the green, braiding to become one with every leap they took towards the enemy. The monster ran at them, knocking out the last of the lights, but their auras lit the way for them, and with another cry, they lunged forward.

Together, they became a bullet, shooting through the monster, taking a huge chunk from the square middle, large enough they left a gaping hole so huge that they could have seen right through it without squinting. The monster roared and lunged forward still, slowing to a stop along the way because its targets had shifted right through it. Isabel and Ed came out the other side, shooting across the hall until Isabel set one foot on the ground below them. Ed followed suit, and they both slowed to a stop.

The first thing they did was glance at each other as their auras faded. He gave her his smallest grin, and she mirrored everything he was feeling in her smile. They turned to look at the monster as it let out another ferocious howl, echoing in the near-empty hallways.

Dimitri had cut right through one of its fleshy arms with his hand, the eyes along the length of it closing for good as the limb hit the ground. Max attacked its other side with a solid hit to three of the eyes, causing the monster to lurch to the side Dimitri was on, squealing in pain. Isaac was next, summoning a storm cloud as he charged forward. Hail rained down on the monster, causing Max and Dimitri to stumble out of the way, Max whining to anyone who'd listen, though primarily whining to Isaac, about how close that'd been. The monster folded back, slinking backwards, towards Ed and Isabel. They both crouched down, ready to form another bullet should they need to.

To their surprise, Spender launched into the air, grazing the ceiling above, and used the shadow of the broken shards of glass on the floor to slice its head clean off, sending it spiraling their way. With a noise of disgust, and a stuck-out tongue on Isabel's part, they moved as it went right by their heads.

On the other side of the hall, they could hear Suzy and Collin screaming and laughing, hugging each other and leaping for joy, though the leaping part was clearly at Collin's expense.

Dimitri met Isabel's gaze and grinned, offering her a simple thumbs up. She grinned from ear to ear and returned the gesture.


	16. Epilogue

It was only around a half an hour later that the other spectrals flooded in. Guerra's backup arrived in the nick of time, ramming through the front doors, trampling over what monsters remained and taking them out, one by one in a battle reminiscent of the wars in Spender's history books. The halls turned nightmares became war-zones, and there wasn't a single wing or hallway or classroom that wasn't being flipped, toppled over, destroyed as trained spectrals clashed against human-spirit hybrid monstrosities. Other spectrals, with powers less offensive and more defensive, led each saved student and teacher out the closest exits, roping them all into single-file lines. There were no casualties, and everyone was thankful for that, but every student in the school, and every teacher, would be walking away from Mayview Middle that day with a scar they'd never heal. Agent Day herself concluded that she'd be speaking to each individual survivor- after all, she was there to look for monsters, and it was clear that this was only the beginning of a war; there'd be more.

And it was his fault.

Isaac grimaced and leaned against the wall near the infirmary door, not quite comfortable standing there with all of them while Isabel was getting her shoulder patched up. They didn't want him in there, so he'd stay away like he should.

"Don't do it."

Isaac raised his head as Dimitri cracked open the infirmary door just wide enough to slip out. They made eye-contact, a rare moment when Dimitri seemed to be asking for permission. When Isaac said nothing, he shut the door behind him and came to lean against the wall by his side, ignoring the tension floating about in the heavy air.

"Do what?"

Dimitri stuck his hands in his pockets. "Quit the club."

Isaac snorted and Dimitri set one foot against the wall. "I'm serious. It was the worst decision I ever made." He shrugged, and Isaac pretended to be focusing on the door to the classroom in front of him, hoping he'd just shut up and leave. When he didn't, Isaac looked in the other direction; hearing what he didn't want to was enough. "Don't get me wrong, I love Suzy and Collin, but there's this whole side to me they don't get, you know?"

Isaac bit back how they'd probably get it now, because they knew everything; they still wouldn't understand, and he knew that. They still didn't have tools and they still weren't mediums. They could hear about their world but they'd never see it. Whatever. Dimitri would likely rejoin the club- he'd have no reason to stay away anymore, but Isaac still felt guilty for ever putting him in a position that he'd had to. Isaac looked to his feet again, but still said nothing. Dimitri sighed heavily and turned back around, opening and entering the infirmary to join the rest of the club again. Isaac watched as the smallest crack between the door and the threshold shut, then turned around and walked away.

There was something he had to do.

* * *

Max was snickering at her, and she didn't like it. "What." He only grinned more.

"Nothing. You just look so helpless sitting on that table getting your shoulder patched up."

"Oh, bite me."

Spender stepped forward, brows furrowed. He'd been worrying his lip for the better part of fifteen minutes, and the elderly nurse was yet to do anything to settle him down. "Now, now, she's fine. The wound is deep, but it isn't fatal." The whole room sighed, some of them, like Max, unaware they'd been as nervous as Spender had been until they heard the wound wasn't fatal. Dimitri chose that moment to re-enter, looking awfully downtrodden for having just been in the bathroom. "I do suggest taking her to the hospital, however. She will need stitches."

"Again?" Isabel threw her head back and groaned.

"So I have to ask," Max mumbled, and the attention of the room shifted to him from where he lounged haphazardly against the nurse's chair and desk. "Are we going to be arrested again?"

Spender shook his head. "I don't believe we will." Reaching over, he set both hands over the nurse's ears, who hardly even noticed as he proceeded to clean out Isabel's wound. "The Consortium does have agents within that sector. BL won't be pleased that she has to clean this mess up, but the odds that we'll be pursued again are slim." His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "However, covering up Mayview will be much more difficult. I doubt the students and teachers attacked today won't be going home to tell their families. We're going to have to do a lot of housekeeping before all of this is over. Things in Mayview are going to change pretty fast."

Isabel glanced over at Ed, who'd taken to sitting on the windowsill and swinging his legs back and forth. He'd been, perhaps, as outwardly worried as Spender was, and had all but hoisted her to the nurse's office, with Dimitri's help, against her will. Anything he'd been worried about seemed to drop off the face of the earth the moment they knew she'd be okay. He was acting like himself again, like Ed again. "So," She smiled, and he looked up at her from his swinging legs. "It's probably a good idea that you stick around our dojo a little longer then, right?"

He didn't respond with surprise the way she thought he might. He only watched her face, his once relaxed face falling to a frown.

Max must have been the only one capable of reading a room, because he jumped up from his seat and clasped his hands together. "Okay!" He used one hand to tug Spender's sleeve as his other arm wrapped around Dimitri's shoulders. "I think we should find Suzy and Collin and Isaac, who are probably off being mentally scarred and moody, respectively, somewhere else!" Spender waved his free arm around, fumbling over himself as Max dragged him out of the room, while Dimitri seemed subdued, though puzzled.

Isabel's smile fell when Ed sighed and moved on the windowsill so that he was sitting closer to her. Something about the movement seemed cautious, like he was trying to pacify a lion. The room was quiet without the rest of the club there, and even the nurse seemed oblivious to their conversation, which was all well and good- if he hadn't, she'd might've had to convince him to mind his own business. Ed met her eyes again, lips thinning into a line, eyes narrowing. He looked different, more confident, than usual. "Isabel, this is something I have to do."

That wasn't what she wanted to hear. "Why? You have Grandpa! He's willing to teach you, right?"

"I'm not learning from Master Guerra." Something inside of her twisted to hear him being so formal. She couldn't remember the last time he'd referred to him as anything but "Old Man" in her presence, and she wasn't sure she liked his tone.

He sounded sorry.

"And I've learned a lot from Master Hashimoto."

She grimaced. It was true, she had a feeling he wouldn't have come home Wednesday night if it wasn't, but she still didn't like it, and some desperate part of her wanted him to be lying again. If he was telling her the truth, if he meant a word of what he was saying, then-!

Isabel spit it out the moment the thought occurred to her. "Then I'll follow you!"

Ed looked concerned for a moment, brows furrowing at her. "Master Guerra would never allow that."

"I don't care!"

"Isabel-"

"Why are you so bent on leaving me?" Ed stopped before he could say whatever it was he was going to say, and she was thankful for just a moment; she didn't want to hear it. She felt the stinging behind her eyes rising again, and rising, and it was hot and so hard to hold back on right then, but she wouldn't cry. "I've already lost Eightfold, and now you want to leave me, too? You're my best friend! You're supposed to be here! You're supposed to stay with me! How could you just up and decide the dojo isn't good enough for you anymore? Do you know how selfish that is?" Ed frowned and reached out to her, brushing the nurse's hands away before he pulled her into his arms. She stuck her head in his shoulder, trembling with the tears she refused to let fall, squeezing her eyes tight and fisting her hands in his jacket, tugging him closer. "How am I supposed to just let you leave? I don't- I don't know what I'm supposed to do without you! You've been there my whole life..."

Ed ran a hand down her hair, using the other to rub circles into her back as he pressed his cheek to her head. It didn't help. It wasn't enough. She wanted him to stay. He had to stay.

"Isabel." She didn't want to hear it. "I promise you I'll come back." She stiffened. Ed pulled her closer, squeezing her with so much strength, she swore he was someone else entirely, but it still, somehow, felt like Ed. He was warm, and he was familiar. "I promised myself that I'd become a man worthy of the Guerra name, and that's what I'm going to do."

Isabel stayed still for a moment, letting his words process.

He pressed a kiss to her head, and just like that, she was squeezing him alive.

* * *

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight." Spender chuckled to himself as Max gestured enthusiastically, if not overdramatically, at Dimitri, who was smirking to himself. "You were a spectral, and you were in the club?"

"Yep."

Max frowned, and waved his hands from his chest to his shoulders. "So then why did you quit?"

Dimitri sighed and shook his head. "That's a story for another time, my man."

Max groaned for an extended period of time. "That is so annoying!" Seemed he didn't quite get the irony there. He continued mumbling for a few minutes about how "everything had to be a mystery with them" among other, semi-truthful, observations.

"I have to agree with Dimitri for the moment, Max," Spender gave them a smile as they arrived at the club room door, reaching into his pocket and digging around for his key. "We've all had a long day, it's best we rest up and-" He paused upon realizing that, instead of unlocking the door, he'd locked it. "Well… that's odd. I thought for sure I locked it after school on Wednesday?" He turned it the other way and unlocked it again before pressing the door open.

Inside, the lights were on, and Spender took a moment of pause upon entering the room. Max and Dimitri stood behind, blinking with a mix of confusion and suspicion. "That's even odder. I know for a fact that I shut the lights off?" He motioned for his students to stay put and strode over to the middle of the room. He glanced around, aura gathered at his hands, before ultimately deciding there didn't appear to be a hidden threat. "Well," He straightened up and readjusted his tie, not that there was much use to appearances after their battle with the monsters. They would all have to take very long, very soapy, baths when they got home. "I suppose I was mistaken. I must have been rather absent-minded that night."

"What's that?" Dimitri pointed to a folded piece of paper sitting atop Spender's desk, away from the piles and piles of papers, looking definitively not like homework or a test.

Spender walked over and picked it up, humming. "That's a good question."

Max and Dimitri hardly had a second to exchange a look before Spender slammed it down on the desk and bolted for the door. They stepped back into the hallway and he threw his hand out, gesturing to the rest of the school. "Find Isaac, now!"

Max shook his head in bewilderment, while Dimitri appeared guarded. "What? Why?"

* * *

 _Dear Mister Spender, or Activity Club, or I guess whoever is reading this…_

 _I know I messed up. I know there's no going back on that. Honestly, none of this has really been your fault. I've been so mad at you for keeping secrets but…_

"Isaac!" Max's voice was hoarse, and he'd been running through the streets for what must have been an hour, but there was no time to waste. The sun was setting over the city, and he could feel daylight slipping from his fingers as each minute passed. Night would fall soon, and so would any chance of finding their stupid, oblivious storm cloud. Their mascot.

"Isaac!" Dimitri's voice echoed his panic, albeit from a distance. They'd split up somewhere down the hill, hoping to cover more ground that way. From the way things were going, they hadn't done much. "Isaac!"

"Isaac!" Max stopped for a moment to catch his breath, bending over with his hands at his knees. "Isaac! Where the heck are you?" He wasn't expecting an answer, and that was what bothered him more than anything, the thought that maybe he never would get one. His heart was pounding painfully against his chest, and he knew all too well it wasn't the running that'd done it. Panic had taken all of him over, familiar and gripping so firmly on his mind that it consumed every thought, maybe for a long time, and there was only one thing that would stifle it. He grunted and continued down the hill again. "Isaac!"

 _The truth is that you started keeping secrets for a reason. I hurt Dimitri, could have hurt all of you, too. I had no right to be mad at you for keeping me at an arm's length. I earned that, and I forgot that. Now all of Mayview is going to know that spectrals exist because I couldn't control my temper, just like before. You guys have every right to hate me, but that sad thing is that, even now, I don't think you do._

Spender bursted through the door of the infirmary, screams so desperate that any threat from the tone was void. Isabel and Ed were up and on their feet before he could even explain why he was so hysterical, because somewhere they'd been feeling uneasy, too. Spender all but tore the keys to his car out of his pocket as they sped down the staircase two steps at a time, grimacing and grinding his teeth because it felt like he couldn't do anything fast enough.

* * *

The phone rang, and rang, and rang, but nobody answered. Usually he wouldn't have been risking a hand off the wheel, but the call was too important not to make. Isabel and Ed were glued to the back windows of the car, hands pressed to the glass, and usually he'd worry they'd leave a smudge, but nobody was picking up and he tried and tried and tried, and nothing else was on his mind. "Hello, you've reached The O'Connor residence. We can't come to the phone right now-" He cut the call short, grinding his teeth together.

 _I wanted you to hate me. I thought it was the only way to get you all to see me as something other than the club mascot… but you probably still do. I can't make you guys care about me, and it was ridiculous to think I ever would. I deserve worse than that. I deserve what you've been giving me this whole time. I went back on everything I believe in for the sake of hurting you back when I was the one who started it. For that, I have to pay._

"Isaac!"

Max and Dimitri had long since abandoned the area around the school. It was obvious he was long gone- Max winced- at least from the school grounds. Dimitri reasoned that he couldn't have gone far, that he'd spoken to Isaac only minutes before they'd left the infirmary, that he wasn't that far ahead of them, but Max had the nagging feeling he was only trying to do the logical thing, the doctor thing- keep everyone calm, but Max wasn't interested in being placated like a scared animal.

They'd come together at the end of the diverging road between the neighborhood Max lived in and the rest of town, and separated again when there was another fork near the fenced off side of another hill. Dimitri went right, he went left.

 _What I've done is inexcusable, and I know that. I've betrayed what little trust you all had in me, and in the process, I managed to hurt Suzy and Collin, and even the rest of the school. People are in pain now, and it's all my fault. Because I couldn't take the blame like I should have, I stepped way out of line and broke my own oath. Well, now I'm ready._

Spender hit on the brakes as another car drove by the red light, nearly ramming their car at the side. He was slamming on the horn as soon as his body was done lurching forward and back. Isabel and Ed croaked and tugged at their seatbelts at the sudden jolt. The other car drove off, and Spender grimaced. "Hold on!" They were off the moment his foot snapped off the break, his other pressing down on the gas pedal. Dimitri and Max had one side of town covered, but there was so much town to cover, and only so much time before-

His hand clenched around the steering wheel.

 _Before I do this, I wanted to say I'm sorry._

Suzy shivered, and Collin frowned, reaching up to grab one of the coats from the Lost & Found from where they sat below the front office desk. "Are you cold?"

She frowned and reached both hands up to rub at her shoulders, uncertain if the sudden disappearance of heat had anything to do with the setting sun. She wouldn't have been surprised if one of those things had managed to knock out the whole of the heating/air conditioning system. "I must be…"

He set the coat over shoulders and pulled either part of the front together for her, for which she thanked him in the smallest of voices. He nodded.

"Hey, Collin?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Isaac's okay?"

He glanced at her, an eyebrow raised.

 _I swear to you guys: I will never hurt anyone like this again. I will never do to anyone else what I've done to you. All of the pain I caused you, all of the mistakes I made…_

Isabel and Ed had rolled down the windows and he hadn't even noticed. "Isaac!" It was hard to hear them over the harsh winds blowing through the car, through their hair, through them. Isabel had once hand cupped over her mouth, while Ed was busying himself painting up a megaphone. Spender scrunched his nose as the cold of the evening settled over him.

 _I'm going to fix them._

Max took a deep breath, hands clenching, cheeks filling to their very limit with air, and then let it out with the loudest intentions he could muster.

" _ **Isaac!"**_

There was no answer, only the quiet of the city, the low hustle and bustle of everyday life going on all around him. The loss of air made him dizzy, and he all but fell back into his knees, hands pressed to his legs as he hunched over and gathered as much air as he could. In and out, to the flow of the sounds of the river running by, he swallowed clumps of air, forcing down the reflex to cough or dry heave. His legs were numb with dull pain, and his sides were burning and there was a sharp pain in his lungs- he knew he'd pushed his body too far, but he had to.

He had to.

"You overdramatic little…" he mumbled to himself when he found the breathing room, raising the back of his wrist to wipe at the sweat rolling down his chin. _Isaac, what are you even thinking?_ With a sigh, he straightened up and readjusted his cap by the wing, intending fully to continue his search. He thought hard about calling him again, but every call Spender made earlier had gone straight to voicemail, and he had a feeling it'd happen again if he tried. Max growled, grip tightening around his cap. He didn't even know where Isaac lived! He ripped it from his head and tossed it on the ground with a cry, frustration overwhelming him the way every other emotion had that hour, burning in his cheeks, twisting in his stomach. "Where are you?"

He reached down to pick his cap back up, but paused upon observing the green grass below him…

… and the sound of running water.

His eyes widened as he shot back up, absentmindedly placing his cap back on his head as he realized where he was, images of Garcia floating idly by and Johnny hitting his head against a rock and Isaac straight-up _kicking lightning_ at a spirit running through his mind. That meant-!

 _I guess this is goodbye. Thanks for keeping me around while you did._

 _\- Isaac_

* * *

"Young Master Isaac, please!" Doorman was hunched over, hands together, fingers twiddling, sweat bunching up at the top of his reflective head. "There must be some other way!"

"There's not." Isaac frowned and fumbled with the key in his hand, the one that lead to the clubroom. It'd done him good in two years, not that it would be doing him much good from the on. Even so, he planned to hold onto it. It would be a reminder, should he ever need one. He had a feeling he wouldn't, after all the guilt would follow him forever, but it'd be nice to have something… precious. It wouldn't just serve as a physical manifestation of his mission, but as a piece of his past, a piece of the home he knew he'd never see again- the home he no longer had any part of. "I thought about it."

"Are you" Doorman paused and leaned closer, expressionless face inches from Isaac's disheartened one "sure about this, Isaac?"

"I am." He sighed and stuck the clubroom's key into the pocket at his chest before reaching into the back pockets of his jeans. "I need to atone for what I've done."

Doorman pulled back, twiddling hands calming and settling at his chest. He was still worried, Isaac could hear it in his voice, but his concern didn't change what needed to be done; he had to remind himself of that. "You already have…"

Isaac shook his head, meeting Doorman eye-to-lidded-eye, fighting back the urge to run face-first into his towering body and bury his head into his chest. Doorman was trying to cheer him up, but what was done was done, if the calls he'd gotten from Spender were any indication. He'd ignored them each time, but it had, admittedly, chipped away at his resolve, much like Doorman was. "Thank you for saying that, but I… I haven't. I'm not the agent of justice like I pretended to be. I've done nothing but hurt people and make myself an agent of fraud." Doorman didn't make a sound, but he could almost see the disagreeing frown forming figuratively across his knob. "Not only have I endangered the secret of the spectral world and everyone in Mayview," he swallowed there, pressing back against the lump forming in his throat "but I've betrayed the people I…" he squeezed his eyes shut. "... the people I love, more than anything in this whole world." He took his hand from his back pocket, holding the keys from Maybury he'd borrowed from one unsuspecting, and probably confused, scientist at the base. He held them out so Doorman could see them. "Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life making up for it."

Doorman was silent, watching him contemplatively. Isaac wasn't going to say anything to interrupt his train of thought- Doorman knew there would be no stopping him, he just had to let him settle on whether or not he'd help him carry out his new oath or hinder him. They stood there, watching each other, unmoving. It was only after another moment that Doorman exhaled and hung his head.

"If this is truly what you want, Young Master Isaac."

He nodded. "It is."

Doorman reached out and set a hand on his shoulder, surprisingly calm and comforting compared to the mess he'd been when Isaac filled him in. The hold was familial, almost, and Isaac took a moment to suck it all in. After all…

This would be the last time they'd meet.

"You are a good person, Isaac." When he spoke, Doorman's voice was rocky, cracking as his hold on his shoulders tightened. "I wish I had more time with you, but I can see in your heart that you no longer need my guidance. You have chosen a path of nonviolence, and though I ache deeply to see you go, know that I am proud of you for the person you will become." If he could have cried, Isaac was sure he would have. With a start, Isaac raised a hand to his cheek, finding with no small pain that he'd started to.

"It's thanks to you!" He sniffled and wiped at both eyes, teeth shining through his watery grin. "It really is. If I didn't have you, I think" he laughed and brought his hands down so that Doorman could see his face, his genuine, smiling face. "- I know things would have been worse for me. If I just had the blowhard in my ear all day, we'd probably be in a very different place, huh?" Doorman hummed, and he could hear the smile in the sound of it. Isaac wiped at his eyes again, one last time, and nodded through his tears. He'd have time to cry later- now, he needed to go. "Thank you, Doorman. Thank you for everything."

"Of course, Isaac." His hands parted from his shoulders. "If you ever need me again," he pointed to Isaac's heart- more importantly, to the key in the pocket there. "You know how to find me."

Isaac's brows furrowed, and he wanted to ask how that could work, since he could only open a portal by sticking a key directly into Doorman, but he shrugged it off. He must have just meant his heart- his memories, and he could live with that.

Doorman bent down so that he could stick the Maybury key in, and with a deep breath, Isaac did.

Doorman's face grew bright, and he leaned backwards with one hand reaching up to his shoulder. Isaac held one arm up and covered his eyes as the light grew brighter, squeezing one shut as Doorman pulled back his coat and revealed the dark portal to the other side of the barrier. Night had fallen, and he figured he shouldn't have expected anything else, but he still felt surprised at how dim the door was.

With one last smile Doorman's way, and an appreciative glance when he passed him back the keys, he took his first steps toward his future.

Then he stopped.

He was bent on his new oath, bent on atoning by spending the rest of his days doing good in a place far away, but some part of him was screaming right then, begging him, pleading with him, to turn around, just for a moment. It reached out from the skin of his back, clawing at the mansion, and the city, he was leaving behind. It was akin to the feeling of forgetting something, and being lost as to what. The feeling itched, filling him with the faintest idea that he'd know what he was missing if he _just turned around_.

Isaac closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and stepped right through the portal.

Doorman shut the portal behind him, closing his coat and letting the once open door fill to the brim with metaphorical brick.

There was a sudden, heavy sound of steps up stairs, and then they were heavier against the creaking floor of the old abandoned mansion. Doorman glanced up to find Max at the doorway, panting. His eyes were wide, panicked, shoulders heaving with every haul of air he took. Doorman could see him staring him down, see the question he didn't dare ask. Without a word, Doorman's sorrowful gaze fell to the floor.

Max slid limply, lifelessly, down the threshold to his rear, leaning back against the doorframe with such disbelief, so much denial, Doorman knew Isaac had already made another mistake.

* * *

Stepping out into the other side, Isaac quickly came to the conclusion the borrowed keys had been house-keys. He'd stepped into the living room near the front door of someone's home, dark without so much as the TV on, enough to suggest there was either no family to speak of, that they'd taken longer than normal to get a new pair of keys molded, or that they'd all already headed off to bed for the night. Isaac glanced at his watch. 8:30. He shrugged. That wasn't too odd, he supposed. As the portal closed behind him, he turned around and grabbed the handle, reaching up to untwist the lock. When he opened the door, a quiet suburban neighborhood greeted him, as dark as the night could be aside from the occasional lit home and the streetlamps down the street. He set the borrowed keys on the coffee table to the side with the plant sitting atop, and walked out into the world, careful to shut the door behind him quietly.

"Max!"

He'd gotten home a quarter past 9:00, and he hadn't had a lot of time to settle back into the idea that he was actually home by the time his dad was launching from where'd he'd been standing near the corner store phone, their home phone. Two warm hands were all over his face the moment he stepped foot through the sliding doors, murmuring and asking questions too fast for Max to answer. He frowned and shut his eyes, leaning into the touch.

"Where have you been? I heard your school was attacked by… by these monsters and I- I assumed the worst! Is this blood on your clothes? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Dad, I'm…." He sighed.

If he was surprised by Max slowly wrapping his arms around him in a strained, almost grateful, hug, he didn't show it. Max found himself locked between his dad's arms, squeezing him close like he was a little boy again, like everything that'd happened in the last two or three weeks had all been a nightmare he could run from, run straight into the protective presence of a parent. He knew too well he'd have to explain everything when the hold was over, but for the moment, he was going to bask in the love and security he'd thought he'd never feel again.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

He dug his head into his chest. "I'm not ready for you to date again."

There was a sigh, but it wasn't heavy. If anything, he heard relief. "All right, then." He held Max closer, raising one hand behind his head before pressing a long, overwhelmed, exhausted, loving kiss to the side of his head.

Zoe watched silently from the staircase, one hand to her heart, eyes welling with tears she used her other hand to wipe stubbornly at, smiling and taking deep breaths for so, so very many reasons. Pj hovered beside her, grinning to himself and to Lefty as they watched over the Puckett family.

* * *

"That should get their tiny, blind minds working."

A figure, cloaked from head to toe in black, strode along a dark cave, shifting to fly just above the ground to avoid the mess he'd found upon entering what he'd since claimed as his lair. The monsters were stupid, and messy, but they'd done him well yet, and were easy enough to train.

One amber eye, pupil thin and vertical, watched over the cliff where the tides of the ocean shifted below, falling along the jagged edges of sharp rocks and the crash of each wave against the cave wall. "It's been so long… and they do say wisdom comes with age." He was grinning, teeth long and sharp, brushing against his irregular skin and its patterns. "Perhaps, they'll be willing to listen this time."


End file.
